The Talented Mr Potter
by RedPigeon
Summary: Harry Potter was abandoned as a toddler. He grows up by a different name in the streets of London. He survives by any means nessesary; lying, thieving, and scheming. He yearns for a better life, one of luxury and power, until the butterfly-effect finally works it's mysterious way, with a chance encounter. A rewrite of a timeless classic with new twists and turns. WBWL AU DarkHarry
1. Mr Lestrange's Son

**Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the Harry Potter world, which is trademarked by J. K. Rowling. I do not own the plot nor story of The Talented Mr. Ripley, which is trademarked by Patricia Highsmith.**

Thanial glanced behind him and saw the man coming out of the Cobb & Webb's, heading his way. Thanial walked faster. There was no doubt that the man was after him. Thanial had noticed him five minutes ago, eyeing him carefully through a cabinet of crystals, as if he weren't quite sure, but almost. He had looked sure enough for Thanial to get this item in a hurry, pay and get out.

At the corner Thanial leaned forward and trotted across Diagon Alley, leaving Knockturn. There was the Junk Shop. Should he take a chance and get the next item? Tempt fate and all that? Or should he beat it over to Annie's Haberdashery and try losing him in a few dark doorways? He went into the Junk Shop.

Automatically, as he strolled to an empty space at the back-end, he looked around to see if there were any person he knew. There was the shopowner; the big man with the bald head, whose name he always forgot, standing behind the counter whilst helping a customer. The bald man waved a hand, and Thanial's hand went up limply in response. He started to browse the shelved inventory whilst facing the door challengingly, yet with a flagrant casualness.

'I placed an order last week, could you see if it's arrived?' he asked the owner. Was this the kind of man they would send after him? Was he, wasn't he, was he? He didn't look like an Auror or a magistrate at all. He looked like a politician, somebody's father, well-dressed, well-fed, greying at the temples, an air of uncertainty about him. Was that the kind they sent on a job like this, maybe to start chatting with you in a shop, and then bang!- a hand on the shoulder, the other hand displaying an Auror's badge. Barthanial Botts, you're under arrest. Thanial watched the door.

Here he came. The man looked around, saw him and immediately looked away. He removed his top hat and took a place around the curve of the counter.  
By Merlin, what did he want? He certainly wasn't a pervert, Thanial thought for the second time, though now his tortured brain groped and produced the actual word, as if the word could protect him, because he would rather the man be a pervert than an incognito Bluecloak. To a pervert, he could simply say, 'No, thank you,' smile and walk away. Thanial pretended to browse the shelf again, bracing himself.

Thanial saw the man make a gesture of postponement to the owner, who'd just returned with his package, and come around another shelf towards him. Here it was! Thanial stared at him, paralyzed. They couldn't give you more than ten years, Thanial thought. Maybe fifteen, he was still a minor after all, and with good conduct-In the instant the man's lips parted to speak, Thanial had a pang of desperate, agonized regret.

'Pardon me, are you Barthanial Botts?'

'Yes.'

'My name is Rabastan Lestrange. Antonio Lestrange's father.' The expression on his face was more confusing to Thanial than if he had focused a wand on him. The face was friendly, smiling and hopeful. 'You're a friend of Antonio's, aren't you?'

It made a faint connection in his brain. Anton Lestrange. A tall dark-haired lad. Pureblood. He had quite a bit of money, Thanial remembered. The bewilderment must have clouded his memory - everybody knew the Lestrange name. 'Oh, Anton Lestrange. Yes.'

'At any rate, you know Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy. They're the ones who told me about you, that you might-uh-Do you think we could sit down at a table?'

'Yes,' Thanial said agreeably, and picked up his package, leaving four galleons on the counter. He followed the man out of the shop and towards an empty table across the lively cobblestone-street. Reprieved, he thought. Free! Nobody was going to arrest him. This was about something else. No matter what it was, it wasn't grand larceny or tampering with the Dark Arts or whatever they called it. Maybe Rabastan was in some kind of jam. Maybe Mr. Lestrange wanted help or advice. Nevermind the sumptuous surname and vast fortune - Thanial knew just what to say to a father like Mr. Lestrange.

'I wasn't quite sure you were Barthanial Botts,' Mr. Lestrange said. 'I've seen you only once before, I think. Didn't you come up to the house once with Antonio?'

'I think I did.' He hadn't. Thanial would have remembered visiting the Lestrange estate.

'The Malfoys gave me a description of you, too. We've all been trying to reach you, because the Malfoys wanted us to meet at their Manor. Somebody told them you did errands in Knockturn now and then. This is the first night I've tried to find you, so I suppose I should consider myself lucky.' He smiled. 'I sent you an owl last week, but maybe you didn't get it.'

'No, I didn't.' Annie wasn't forwarding his mail, Thanial thought. Damn her. Maybe there was a cheque from an employer. 'I moved a week or so ago,' Thanial added.

'Oh, I see. I didn't say much in my letter. Only that I'd like to see you and have a chat with you. The Malfoys seemed to think you knew Antonio quite well.'

'I remember him, yes.' But mostly from pictures printed in the Daily Prophet, Thanial thought.

'But you're not writing to him now?' He looked disappointed.

'No. I don't think I've seen Anton for a couple of years.'

'He's been studying at Hogwarts for two years. The Malfoys spoke very highly of you and thought you might have some influence on Antonio if you were to write to him. I want him to get his act together and come home. His name bears certain responsibilities-but just now he ignores anything that I or his mother try to tell him.'

Thanial was puzzled. 'Just what did the Malfoys say?'

'They said-apparently they exaggerated a little-that you and Antonio were very good friends. I suppose they took it for granted you were writing him all along. You see, I know so few of Antonio's friends any more -' He glanced down at the empty table, as if he would have liked to offer him a drink, at least, but Thanial was a barely old enough.

Thanial remembered going to a ball at the Malfoys' with Anton Lestrange. Maybe the Lestranges were more friendly with the Malfoys than he was, and that was how it had all come about, because he hadn't seen the Malfoys more than three or four times in his life. And the last time, Thanial thought, was the night he had cataloged Lucius Malfoy's cursed artifacts for him. Besides being a respected member of the Wizengamot, Lucius was also a collector of strange treasures, and he had been in a complete muddle with what was actually dangerous and whatnot; a house-elf had apparently lost its life trying to dust of a medallion - it had presumably been a messy affair. Lucius had thought he was a genius for having given additional pointers and providing original charms to keep his family secure. Maybe that was what had prompted Lucius' recommendation of him to Mr. Lestrange. Judging him from that night, Lucius could have told Mr. Lestrange that he was intelligent, level-headed, scrupulously honest, and very willing to do a favor. It was a slight error.

'I don't suppose you know of anybody else from Durmstrang? Anyone close to Antonio who might be able to wield a little influence?' Mr. Lestrange asked rather pitifully.

Durmstrang! Thanial was still wearing the pin with the school's crest - he'd transmuted it with cheap metals a couple of years back, acting as a student and being a means to enter upper-class society. It _had_ worked, though slowly. He'd met the Malfoys and Blacks that way, though he did avoid causing unnecessary attention to himself - it would be easy for a man like Lucius to check with Durmstrang's administration. It was more than a slight error.

"Well?" Mr. Lestrange asked again.

There was Victor Krum, Thanial thought, but he didn't know him personally and frankly he was unsure whether they had been friends at all. Thanial vaguely remembered an article some years back, showing Anton and Victor having a hearty goodbye. That would correlate with Anton transferring to Hogwarts two years back. 'I'm afraid I don't,' Thanial finally said, shaking his head. 'Why won't Anton comply?'

'He says he prefers the company of muggle-born. But his mother's quite ill right now-Well, those are family problems. I'm sorry to annoy you like this.' He passed a hand in a distraught way over his thin, neatly combed grey hair. 'He says he's playing Quidditch. There's no harm in that, but he hasn't the talent to be a professional. He's got great talent for broom-crafting, though, if he'd just put his mind to it.' He looked up at the sign above which displayed an ice cream cone with vividly colored balls. 'Could I indulge you in some ice cream?'

'No, thanks,' Thanial said.

Mr. Lestrange looked at Thanial apologetically. 'You're the first of Antonio's friends who's even been willing to listen. They all take the attitude that I'm trying to interfere with his life.'

Thanial could easily understand that. 'I certainly wish I could help,' he said politely. He remembered now that Anton's money came from a broombuilding company. Intermediate training brooms. No doubt his father wanted him to get a proper education and take over the family firm. Thanial smiled at Mr. Lestrange, meaninglessly, then nestled the packages under his arm. Thanial was on the edge of his chair, ready to leave, but the disappointment across the table was almost palpable. 'Who is keeping him company at Hogwarts?' Thanial asked, not caring a damn who it could be.

'Muggleborns and half-bloods, not nearly any Slytherins. He won't confirm nor be bound by any tradition, he tells me. Divides his time between flying and studying runes. He's bought a house in Hogsmeade. Antonio has his own income-nothing huge, but enough to live on in Scotland, apparently. Well, every man to his own taste, but I'm sure I can't see the attractions of the place.' Mr. Lestrange smiled bravely. 'Can't I offer you anything, Mr. Botts?' he asked when a waiter had come out to check on the patrons.

Thanial wanted to leave. But he'd hate to leave one of the wealthiest wizards in Britain alone at an ice cream shop. 'Thanks, I think I will,' he said, and asked the waiter for a strawberry and vanilla.

'Lucius Malfoy told me you were in the insurance business,' Mr. Lestrange said pleasantly. "And you have your education at Durmstrang as well?'

'That was a little while ago. I -' But he didn't want to say he was working odd jobs around the city, not now. 'I'm in the accounting department of a trades agency at the moment. Just a summer job.'

'Oh?'

Neither said anything for a minute. Mr. Lestrange's eyes were fixed on him with a pathetic, hungry expression. What on earth could he say? Thanial was sorry he had accepted the ice cream. 'How old is Anton now, by the way?' he asked.

'He's sixteen.'

So am I, Thanial thought. Anton was probably having the time of his life up there. An income, a house, friends, and an education at the most prestigious school for wizards. Why should he want to give that up? Anton's face was becoming clearer in his memory: he had a big smile, darkish hair with crisp waves in it, a happy-go-lucky face. Anton was lucky. What was he himself doing at sixteen? Living from week to week. No bank account. Dodging Aurors now for the first time in his life. He'd never been allowed a wand, so he had a talent for wandless magic and transmutation in particular. Why in hell didn't they pay him for it, somewhere? Thanial realized that all his muscles had tensed, that the spoon in his fingers was mashed sideways, nearly flat. He was bored, God-damned bloody bored, bored, bored! He wanted to be back at the Haberdashery, by himself.

Thanial took a lick of the ice cream. 'I'd be very glad to write to Anton, if you give me his address,' he said quickly. 'I suppose he'll remember me. We shared a lot of classes together, I remember. Anton and I went out and flew often, it was freezing but everyone still watched us play.' Thanial smiled. 'A couple of us got sick, and it wasn't a very good week. But I remember Anton talking that weekend about transferring to Hogwarts. He must have left just -'

'I remember!' Mr. Lestrange said. 'That was the last weekend Antonio was at Durmstrang. I think he told me about the freezing weather.' He laughed rather loudly.

'I came up to your house a few times, too,' Thanial went on, getting into the spirit of it. 'Anton showed me some broom models that were sitting on a table in his room.'

'Those are only childhood efforts!' Mr. Lestrange was beaming. 'Did he ever show you his working models? Or his own rune system?'

Anton hadn't of course, but Thanial said brightly, 'Yes! Sure he did. Coal and chalk arrays. Fascinating, some of them.' Thanial had never seen them, but he could see them now, precise draughtsman's runes with every line and number and word marked, could see Anton smiling, holding them up for him to look at, and he could have gone on for several minutes describing details for Mr. Lestrange's delight, but he checked himself.

'Yes, Antonio's got talent along those lines,' Mr. Lestrange said with a satisfied air.

'I think he has,' Thanial agreed. His boredom had slipped into another gear. Thanial knew the sensations. He had them sometimes at meetings, but generally when he was having dinner with someone with whom he hadn't wanted to have dinner in the first place, and the evening got longer and longer. Now he could be maniacally polite for perhaps another whole hour, if he had to be, before something in him exploded and sent him running out of the door, or perhaps apparating on the spot. 'I'm sorry I'm not quite free now or I'd be very glad to go to Hogwarts and see if I could persuade Anton myself. Maybe I could have some influence on him,' he said, just because Mr. Lestrange wanted him to say that.

'If you seriously think so-that is, I don't know if you're planning a trip to Scotland or not.'

'No, I'm not,'

'Anton was always so influenced by his friends. If you or somebody like you who knew him could get a leave of absence, I'd even send them over to talk to him. I think it'd be worth more than my going over, anyway. I don't suppose you could possibly get a leave of absence from your present job, could you?'

Thanial's heart took a sudden leap. He put on an expression of reflection. It was a possibility. Something in him had smelt it out and leapt at it even before his brain. Present job: done, finished. He might have to leave town soon, anyway. He wanted to leave London. 'I might,' he said carefully, with the same pondering expression, as if he were even now going over the thousands of little ties that could prevent him.

'If you did go, I'd be glad to take care of your expenses, and a scholarship as well, that goes without saying. Do you really think you might be able to arrange it? Say, next month?' The bustling street drowned out the silence between them. "I'll even have somebody make the necessary paperwork, and get you transferred from Durmstrang to Hogwarts should you wish," he added.

It was already the middle of August. Thanial stared at the gold signet ring with the nearly worn-away crest on Mr. Lestrange's littlefinger. 'I think I might. I'd be glad to see Anton again-especially if you think I might be of some help.'

'I do! I think he'd listen to you. Then the mere fact that you don't know him very well-If you put it to him strongly why you think he ought to understand this seriousness of the matter, he'd know you hadn't any axe to grind.' Mr. Lestrange leaned back in his chair, looking at Thanial with approval. 'Funny thing is, Perseus Parkinson and his wife-Perseus is my partner -they went by Hogwarts last year when they were visiting their daughter Pansy. Antonio promised he'd come home at the holidays. Last winter. Perseus' given him up. What boy of sixteen listens to an old man sixty or more? You'll probably succeed where the rest of us have failed!'

'I hope so,' Thanial said modestly. 'In regards to the necessary paperwork I'll manage on my own, but thanks for the offer.' He followed that with a calculated smile.

'How about dinner? How about a nice firewhiskey?'


	2. Dinner of Promises

It was after midnight when Thanial started home, Mr. Lestrange had offered to drop him off via apparition, but Thanial had not wanted him to see where he lived - in a dingy brownstone lodge in the south of London with a 'ROOMS TO LET' sign hanging out. For the last two and half weeks, Thanial had been living within Annie's Haberdashery. Annie was the owner; an older witch that he hardly knew, but Annie had been the only one of Thanial's friends and acquaintances in London who had volunteered to put him up when he had been without a place to stay. Thanial had not asked any of his friends up to Annie's, and had not even told anybody where he was living. The main advantage of Annie's place was that he could get his mail there with the minimum chance of detection. But the smelly john down the hall that didn't lock, his grimy single room that looked as if it had been lived in by a thousand different people who had left behind their particular kind of filth and never lifted a hand to clean it, those slithering stacks of Brews&Boils and Potionéer Weekly and those big unsanitary bronze cauldrons all over the place, filled with tangles of stringy-tangy mush and cigarette butts and decaying fruit! Annie was a freelance potionéer for shops and stalls in the Alley, but now the only work she did was occasional jobs for small country shops who'd usually file for bankruptcy shortly after a shipment. Thanial had been shocked at the sordidness of the place, shocked that he even knew anybody who lived like that, but he had known that he wouldn't live there very long. And now Mr. Lestrange had turned up. Something always turned up. That was Thanial's philosophy.

Just before he climbed the brownstone steps, Thanial stopped and looked carefully in both directions. Nothing but an old woman airing her dog, and a weaving old man standing at a bus-stop. If there was any sensation he hated, it was that of being followed, by anybody. And lately he had it all the time. He ran up the steps.

A lot the sordidness mattered now, he thought as he went into the room. As soon as he could get a passport and fake his Durmstrang papers, he'd be with the train for Scotland, probably in a first-class train compartment. Waiters to bring him things when he pushed a button! Strolling through the train-sections, talking with people at his age like a gentleman! That, or he would take the floo...- anyway, he could congratulate himself on tonight, he thought. He had behaved just right. Mr. Lestrange couldn't possibly have had the impression that he had wangled the invitation to Scotland. Just the opposite. He wouldn't let Mr. Lestrange down. He'd do his very best with Anton. Mr. Lestrange was such a decent fellow himself, he took it for granted that everybody else in the world was decent, too. Thanial had almost forgotten such people existed.

Slowly he took off his black overcloak and unbuttoned his jacket, watching every move he made as if it were somebody else's movements he was watching. Astonishing how much straighter he was standing now, what a different look there was in his face. It was one of the few times in his life that he felt pleased with himself. He put a hand into Annie's glutted closet and thrust the hangers aggressively to right and left to make room for his robes. Then he went into the bathroom. The old rusty showerhead sent a jet against the shower curtain and another jet in an erratic spiral that he could hardly catch to wet himself, but it was better than sitting in the filthy tub. He could recall Annie yelling 'No magic under my roof Mr. Botts!...' or something like that when he first had arrived, '... I don't want the Ministry on this here doorstep!'.  
If Thanial hadn't been reprimanded like so, he would have fixed the place up in a jiffy - starting with the damned showerhead.

When he woke up the next morning Annie was not there, and Thanial saw from a glance at her room that she hadn't come home. Thanial jumped out of bed, went to his cabinet to find out what needed to sham the Hogwarts administration. He twiddled through his stuff for a moment - nothing he couldn't get in Knockturn, he gathered. Just as well Annie wasn't home this morning. He didn't want to tell her about the trip. All that old hag would see in it was a free trip. And Roy Martin, too, probably, and Bert, and all the other crumbs he knew. He wouldn't tell any of them, and he wouldn't have anybody seeing him off. Thanial began to whistle. He was invited to dinner tonight at the Lestrange's London apartment in Kensington.

Fifteen minutes later, showered, mane tamed in a ponytail, and outfitted in dress robes and a striped tie that he thought would look well in his passport photo, Thanial was strolling up and down the room with a cup of tea in his hand, waiting for the hooting of the morning mail. After the mail, he would go over to a tiny place behind Borgin and Burkes to take care of the passport and documentation business. After that, he would send the packages from yesterday to that shady fellow he met last week - hopefully get paid this time. What should he do this afternoon? Go to some Quidditch-game, so he could chat about it tonight with the Lestranges. Do some research on Lestrange-Parkinson Broomcraft, Inc., so Mr. Lestrange would know that he took an interest in his work?

The whack of the owl came faintly through the open window, and Thanial went downstairs. He waited until the owl was away and out of sight before he looked at the letter addressed to Tabbitha Ralston. Thanial ripped it open. Out came a cheque for one galleon and eleven sickle and twenty-four knuts, payable to lady Ralston. Good old Mrs. Emily W. Shaw! Paid without a whimper, without even a personal visit. It was a good omen. He looked at the door to see if Annie was on her way up the steps, surprising him loudly as Thanial had grown accustomed to. When he was certain she wasn't, he allowed himself to transmute Mrs. Shaw's envelope, letting it wither into dust in the palm of his hand.

He put her cheque into a manila envelope in the inside pocket of one of his jackets in the closet. This raised his total in cheques to thirty-two galleons, eight sickles, and twenty-four knuts, he calculated in his head. A pity that he couldn't cash them yet. Or that some idiot hadn't paid in cash yet, but so far no one had.  
Thanial had created Tabbitha Ralston as an alias, deriving as an anagram from his own name: Barthanial Botts. He'd done it out of boredom a year back or so, but now he used the fake persona for future money laundering. 'Erase the trace', he'd often thought to himself over and over - almost approaching a point of being a mantra - helping him being rational and collected.

Thanial fell back in the only armchair the estate had to offer and stretched. Mrs. Shaw and the others would never know that Tabbitha Ralston was really just a far-too-young errand boy doing their dirty bidding and all the better for it. 'Erase the trace', he thought again.

Thanial sat there for a moment, giggling, the palms of his thin hands pressed together between his knees. Then he jumped up, threw his overcloak on, adjusted his posture neatly in front of the mirror, meeting his own emerald eyes for just a second, and set off for Knockturn Alley.

* * *

'HELLO-O, Barthanial, my boy!" Mr. Lestrange said in a voice that promised good drinks, a gourmet's dinner, and a bed for the night in case he got too tired to go home. 'Adine, this is Barthanial Botts!'

'I'm so happy to meet you!' she said warmly.

'How do you do, Mrs. Lestrange?'

She was very much what he had expected-dark-haired, rather tall and slender, with enough formality to keep him on his good behavior, yet with the same naive good-will-toward-all that Mr. Lestrange had. Mr. Lestrange led them into the living-room. Yes, he had never been here before - he would have remembered those chandeliers dangling down, like golden spires trying to pierce him.

'Mr. Botts' in the insurance business,' Mr. Lestrange announced, and Thanial thought he must have had a few already, or he was very nervous tonight, because Thanial had given him quite a description last night of the trades agency where he had said he was working.

'Not a very exciting job,' Thanial said modestly to Mrs. Lestrange.

A house-elf came into the room with a tray of martinis and sodas.

'Mr. Botts' been here before,' Mr. Lestrange said. 'He's come here with Antonio.'

'Oh, has he? I don't believe I met you, though.' She smiled. 'Are you from London?'

'Yes, South London,' Thanial said. That was true.

About thirty minutes later - just the right time later, Thanial thought, because the Lestranges had kept insisting that he drink another and another martini, though he'd tried to reach for a soda - they went into a dining-room off the living-room, where a table was set for three with candles, huge dark-blue dinner napkins, and a small mountain of various seafood. But first, there was an assortment of cheeses, bread and berries with a Beluga Caviar centerpiece. Thanial was very fond of it. He said so.

'So is Antonio!' Mrs. Lestrange said. 'He always liked it the way our cook makes it. A pity you can't take him some.'

'I'll put it with the socks,' Thanial said, smiling, and Mrs. Lestrange laughed. She had told him she would like him to take Antonio some black woolen socks from Burberry, the kind Antonio always wore. He'd discretely tried to ask why they shopped at a muggle-store, and they had given a vague answer, clearly trying to avoid the subject. Despite the dogmatic pureblooded politics, the rich could afford the double standard. Thanial didn't know whether to feel dazzled or sick by that.

The conversation was dull, and the dinner superb. In answer to a question of Mrs. Lestrange, Thanial told her that he was working for a trades firm called Silverman, Sachs and Barter. When he referred to it again, he deliberately called it Goldman, Sandy and Parker. Mr. Lestrange didn't seem to notice the difference. Thanial mentioned the firm's name a second time when he and Mr. Lestrange were alone in the living room after dinner.

'Did you go to school in London before Durmstrang?' Mr. Lestrange asked.

'No, sir. I attended a small public school outside the city for a while, and then I was homeschooled by my Aunt who also happened to reside in that region.' Thanial waited, hoping Mr. Lestrange would ask him something about Durmstrang, but he didn't. Thanial could have discussed the system of teaching magic, the campus restrictions, the atmosphere at the weekend dances, the political tendencies of the student body, anything. Thanial had been very friendly three years back with a Durmstrang junior who had talked of nothing but Durmstrang, so that Thanial had finally pumped him for more and more, foreseeing a time when he might be able to use the information. Thanial had told the Lestrange's that he had been raised by his Aunt Kate outside London. She had taken him to London when he was eleven, and actually from then, he'd studied his way through Durmstrang far away from home, but Thanial had felt as if he had never left London.

'Specialise in anything in particular?' Mr. Lestrange asked.

'Sort of divide myself between arithmancy and astrology,' Thanial replied with a smile, knowing it was such a dull answer that nobody would possibly pursue it.

Mrs. Lestrange came in with a photograph album, and Thanial sat beside her on the sofa while she turned through it. Antonio taking his first step, Antonio in a ghastly brightly-colored photograph dressed and posed on a broom, with long black curls. The album was not interesting to him until Antonio got to be fifteen or so, long-legged, slim, with the wind blowing in his hair. So far as Thanial could see, he had hardly changed between thirteen and fifteen or sixteen, when the pictures of him stopped, and it was astonishing to Thanial how little the bright, naive smile changed. Thanial could not help feeling that Antonio was not very intelligent, or else he loved to be photographed and thought he looked best with his mouth spread from ear to ear, which was not very intelligent of him, either.

'I haven't gotten round to pasting these in yet,' Mrs. Lestrange said, handing him a batch of loose pictures. 'These are all from Scotland.'

They were more interesting: Anton in what looked like a hall in Hogwarts, Anton in a boat on a lake. In several of them he was frowning.

'This is Hogsmeade, by the way,' Mrs. Lestrange said, indicating a picture of Anton standing in front a small cottage, waving lazily. The picture was backgrounded by snowy, crooked rooftops and chimneys, letting smog from the hearths twirl upwards.

'And here's the girl there, is one of his close friends.'

'Ginevra Weasley,' Mr. Lestrange supplied. He sat across the room, but he was leaning forward, following the picture-showing intently.

The girl was wearing a red sweater, sitting on a couch, her arms around her knees, healthy and unsophisticated-looking, with tousled, short red hair - the good-egg type, he knew of the Weasleys and so this would be their only daughter.

There was a good picture of Antonio, sitting on the parapet of a section of castle-ramparts. He was smiling, but it was not the same smile, Thanial saw. Antonio looked more poised in the Scottish pictures.

Thanial noticed that Mrs. Lestrange was staring down at the rug in front of her. He remembered the moment at the table when she had said, 'I wish we'd never considered Hogwarts! If we'd just chosen Beauxbatons instead,' and Mr. Lestrange had given her an anxious glance and then smiled at him, as if such outbursts had occurred before. Now he saw tears in her eyes. Mr. Lestrange was getting up to come to her.

'Mrs. Lestrange,' Thanial said gently, 'I want you to know that I'll do everything I can to make Anton come back.'

'Bless you, Barthanial, bless you.' She pressed Thanial's hand that rested on his thigh.

'Adine, don't you think it's time you went to bed?' Mr. Lestrange asked, bending over her.

Thanial stood up as Mrs. Lestrange did.

'I hope you'll come again to pay us a visit before you go, Barthanial,' she said. 'Since Antonio's gone, we seldom have any young men to the house. I miss them.'

'I'd be delighted to come again,' Thanial said.

Mr. Lestrange went out of the room with her. Thanial remained standing, his hands at his sides, his head high. In a large mirror on the wall, he could see himself: the upright, self-respecting young man again. He looked quickly away. He was doing the right thing, behaving the right way. Yet he had a feeling of guilt. When he had said to Mrs. Lestrange just now, I'll do everything I can... Well, he meant it. He wasn't trying to fool anybody.

He felt himself beginning to sweat, and he tried to relax. What was he so worried about? He'd felt so well tonight! When he had said that about Aunt Kate - Thanial straightened, glancing at the door, but the door had not opened. That had been the only time tonight when he had felt uncomfortable, unreal, the way he might have felt if he had been lying, yet it had been practically the only thing he had said that was fairly true: My parents died when I was very small. I was raised by my aunt in London. The complete truth: For all he knew, his parents could just as well be dead as alive, and he had known a woman he termed Aunt Kate, who taught him the way of the streets along with giving him his first name - Thanial later changed it of course. 'Erase the trace'.

Mr. Lestrange came into the room. His figure seemed to pulsate and grow larger and larger. Thanial blinked his eyes, feeling a sudden terror of him, an impulse to attack him before he was attacked.

'Suppose we sample some firewhiskey?' Mr. Lestrange said, opening a panel beside the fireplace.

It's like the theater, Thanial thought. In a minute, Mr. Lestrange or somebody else's voice would say, 'Okay, let's take it from the top!' and he would relax again and find himself back in Cobb & Webb's, getting the package. No, back in the Junk Shop.

'Had enough?' Mr. Lestrange asked. 'Don't drink this, if you don't want it.'

Thanial gave a vague nod, and Mr. Lestrange looked puzzled for an instant, smiled, and then poured one firewhiskey.

"I don't mean to pry- do let me know if you think so..." Mr. Lestrange said as he sat again, "... some people find it quite a personal matter, but I wondered what birthcraft you had?"

A cold fear was running over Thanial's body. He still remembered the humiliation all those years ago, though that was all over and he wasn't really afraid, he reminded himself, not now. Birthcrafts were inherent talents that wizards were born with; all unique, ranging from the ability to knowing the weather in advance, to being able to speak with plants. It was a rite of passage to know ones birthcraft before entering a magical learning-institution.  
Thanial had been looking forward to Hogwarts in a way that made others look like they took it for granted. He had just turned eleven and had gotten his acceptance-letter from the school. He had been so naive at eleven, he had thought many times.  
Aunt Kate had told him the birthcraft would show itself in its own way and in its own time. He had been saving up for months, and with some help from Kate, he was able to purchase his own wand. Thanial could still see Mr. Ollivander's wide, pale eyes staring at him as clearly as five years ago.

The first wand had shattered in his hand, and Thanial had cried. The next exploded loudly, leaving burn marks on his fingers. The third and fourth broke as well - just by Thanial holding them. Mr. Ollivander had called it quits some ten wands later and notified the Hogwarts administration. Thanial received an owl with a letter of apology, stating that they, unfortunately, couldn't teach students unable to use wands. Merlin-be-damned... his birthcraft was a birth-ineptitude for wielding wands.

Thanial's legs had felt like jelly when he had read that letter. He would never forget that feeling. Never.

"I am prying aren't I?" Mr. Lestrange's voice said. "Forgive me Barthanial."

"No, of course not sir. Mine's a telekinetic ability - levitating things around and such.'

Mr. Lestrange chuckled. "I know a few people with those - quite impressive compared to my own."

Thanial lifted an eyebrow.

"I've always been able to tell the time, like a clock in the back of my head."

Thanial humored him with a light giggle. "What a handy birthcraft for a businessman like yourself."

Thanial sat down again. Crafting a fake wand before his departure would be a necessity.

'Thinking about Scotland?' Mr. Lestrange asked.

'Yes, I was,' Thanial said.

'Well, I hope you enjoy your trip, Barthanial, as well as have some effect on Antonio. By the way, Adine likes you a lot. She told me so. I didn't have to ask her.' Mr. Lestrange rolled his whiskey glass between his hands. 'My wife has leukemia, Barthanial.'

'Oh. Blood malediction, that's very serious, isn't it?'

'Yes. She may not live a year.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' Thanial said.

Mr. Lestrange pulled a paper out of his pocket. 'I've got the transports available. I think the floo-network is quickest, but not the most interesting. You'd take the floo from the Ministry to Birmingham, then up to Liverpool to Manchester and Edinburgh.'

'That'd be fine.' It began to sound exciting to him.

'You'll, regrettably, have to catch a muggle-bus from Edinburgh to Hogsmeade. I'll write him about you-not telling him that you're an emissary from me,' he added, smiling, 'but I'll tell him we've met. Antonio ought to put you up, but if he can't for some reason, there's your new House's dormitory. I expect you and Antonio'll hit it off all right. Now as to money -' Mr. Lestrange smiled his fatherly smile. 'I propose to give you forty-five galleons apart from your floo-tickets. Does that suit you? The forty-five should see you through nearly six months, and if you need more, all you have to do is send an owl, my boy. You don't look like a young man who'd throw money down the drain.'

'That sounds ample, sir.'


	3. Voyage from London

The atmosphere of the city became stranger as the days went on. It was as if something had gone out of London - the realness or the importance of it - and the city was putting on a show just for him, a colossal show with its buses, taxis, and hurrying people on the sidewalks, its auburn-colored leaves from trees along the canal, its movie marquees lighted up in broad daylight, and its sound effects of thousands of honking horns and human voices, talking for no purpose whatsoever. As if when his body left through the floo on Saturday, the whole city of London would collapse with a poof like as if it could disapparate.

Or maybe he was afraid. He hated heights. He had never been traveling anywhere before on a broom, and he would need to appear like he could towards Anton. The few times he had been on one broom, the feeling of the ground leaving him first frightened him, then made him feel sick, and he had always descended at that point, where, contrary to what people said, he had felt better. Aunt Kate had died fallen from a stolen broom, and Thanial had always thought that probably had something to do with it, because as long as he could remember he had been afraid of heights, and he had never learned how to fly. It gave Thanial a sick, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach to think that in less than a week he would have to perform on a broom, miles high, and that undoubtedly he would have to do it most of the time, because Anton spent most of his time in the air, according to his father. And it was particularly un-chic to be acrophobic, he felt. He had never been sick from heights, but he came very near it several times in those last days, simply thinking about Quidditch caused him vertigo.

He had told Annie that he was moving in a week, but he hadn't said where. Annie did not seem interested, anyway. They saw very little of each other at the Haberdashery. Thanial had gone to Marc Gross' apartment in Knockturn Alley - he still had the keys - to pick up a couple of things he had forgotten, and he had gone at an hour when he had thought Marc wouldn't be there, but Marc had come in with his new housemate, Joel, a thin drip of a young man who worked for the Daily Prophet, and Marc had put on one of his suave 'Please-do- just-as-you-like' acts for Joel's benefit, though if Joel hadn't been there Marc would have cursed him out in language that even a depraved Death Earter wouldn't have used. Marc (his given name was, of all things, Marcellus) was an ugly mug of a man with a private income and a hobby of helping out young men in temporary financial difficulties by putting them up in his two-storey, three-bedroom house, and playing God by telling them what they could and couldn't do around the place and by giving them advice as to their lives and their jobs, generally rotten advice. Thanial had stayed there three months, though for nearly half that time Marc had been in France and he had had the house all to himself, but when Marc had come back he had made a big stink about a few weird scorch marks on the floor - Marc playing God again, the Stern Father - and Thanial had gotten angry enough, for once, to stand up for himself and talk to him back. Whereupon Marc had thrown him out, after collecting fifteen sickles from him for the filthy floor. The old tightwad! He should have been a house-elf, Thanial thought, at the head of a girls' school.

The burned marks had been caused by a strange cursed item he had been experimenting with, not that he could have explained that. Thanial was bitterly sorry he had ever laid eyes on Marc Gross, and the sooner he could forget Marc's stupid, pig-like eyes, his massive jaw, his ugly hands with the gaudy rings (waving through the air, ordering this and that from everybody), the happier he would be.

Besides all the loose ends, he had enjoyed his second dinner at Mr. Lestrange's house, and this time Mr. Lestrange had presented him with a wrist-watch. Not a fabulously expensive wrist-watch, but still an excellent one and just the style Thanial might have chosen for himself - a plain white face with fine black Roman numerals in a simple gold setting with a dragon-suede strap. He's really taken me in like a son, Thanial had thought when presented with the gift. He, in turn, presented his Durmstrang papers as he'd promised, and Mr. Lestrange pocketed them without question. Mr. Lestrange had also beckoned Thanial to come and observe the firm in action, and he'd felt obliged. Lestrange's facilities in North London impressed Thanial more than had expected to be; the miles and miles of tables with operators infusing metal parts with runes, varnishing and polishing wood, the workshops with upcoming designs of all sizes. An employee had come over to discuss matters with Mr. Lestrange, and Thanial had thought quickly and used the distraction to take a small piece of scrab-wood in his pocket.

That afternoon he thought of a design - checked that Annie wasn't about - and reconstructed a nice, simple-looking wand from the wood. He felt proud of the authentic appearance, but he always felt proud when finishing transmutations. He was good at it.

The next day he took care of Mrs. Lestrange's commissions at Burberry, the dozen pairs of black woolen socks and the bathrobe. Mrs. Lestrange had not suggested a color for the bathrobe. She would leave that up to him, she had said. Thanial chose a dark maroon flannel with a navy-blue belt and lapels. It was not the best looking robe of the lot, in Thanial's opinion, but he felt it was exactly what Antonio would have chosen, and that Antonio would be delighted with it. He put the socks and the robe on the Lestrange's charge account. He saw a heavy linen coat with wooden buttons that he liked very much, that would have been easy to put on the Lestrange's account, too, but he didn't. He bought it with his own money - what else could he use the few English Pounds he had laying around for?

* * *

The morning of his voyage, the morning he had looked forward to with such buoyant excitement, got off to a hideous start. Annie had been weaseling through his stuff and found his tickets. After ten excruciating minutes of dull questions, she finally left with a batch of love-potions under her arm. She had only given him a 'Bye' as she'd closen the door behind her. He was thankful for the hasty goodbye.

Thanial skimmed the Quidditch rulebook a second time, then a third - almost memorized at this point - without trying to choke, and then began examining an old photograph of Anton Lestrange from a Durmstrang Yearbook. He shoved both books down his bag, picked up his suitcase and took a last look around the dingy apartment - letting the bubbles of excitement wash over him - before closing the door behind him and leaving the key under the mat.

He hauled his luggage down the stairs and into the sunlight where he was met by Mr. Lestrange's chauffeur. "Here. I'll take that," he said seizing the handles.

"Thanks."

The chauffeur nodded towards the apartment. "That forty-five galleons should come in handy."

"Yes, sir," Thanial said and was about to open the door when the chauffeur interrupted.

"I'll get that-" The Chauffeur then opened the back door. "Sir."

Thanial could not keep himself from chuckling. His ceremonial prelude to the ranks of the aristocracy was almost comical.

"You're gonna have a great trip. I can tell you. The Lestrange name opens a lot of doors."

Half an hour later he arrived at the Ministry of Magic and his mood was tranquil and benevolent, but not at all sociable. Thanial wanted his time for thinking, and he did not care to meet any of the people on his way, not any of them, though when he encountered the people with whom he waited in line, he greeted them pleasantly and smiled. He began to play a role while he waited, that of a serious young man with a serious job ahead of him. He was courteous, poised, civilized and preoccupied.

He had a sudden whim for a cap and bought one by a vendor, a darkish-grey newspaper-cap of soft English wool. He could pull its visor down over nearly his whole face if he wanted to nap at some point or wanted to look as if he were napping. A cap was the most versatile of head-gears, he thought, and he wondered why he had never thought of wearing one before? He could look like a country gentleman, a thug, an Englishman, a Frenchman, or a plain American eccentric, depending on how he wore it. The Ministry's walls and floors were designed with black tiles and Thanial amused himself with it in the reflection. He had always thought he had the world's dullest face, a thoroughly forgettable face with a look of docility that he could not understand, and a look also of vague fright that he had never been able to erase. A real conformist's face, he thought. The cap changed all that. It gave him a country air, Essex, Hampshire, country. Now he was a young man with a private income, not quite out of Hogwarts, perhaps. He felt confident and bought a pack of ScruffyCat's cigarettes to go with the cap.

He was starting a new life. Good-bye to all the second-rate people he had hung around and had let hang around him in the past sixteen years in London. He felt as he imagined immigrants felt when they left everything behind them in some foreign country, left their friends and relations and their past mistakes, and moved toward a better life. A clean slate! Whatever happened with Anton, he would acquit himself well, and Mr. Lestrange would know that he had, and would respect him for it.

When Mr. Lestrange's money was used up and he'd graduated, he might not come back to London. He might get an interesting job teaching at Hogwarts, for instance, where they needed somebody bright and personable who knew transfiguration from transmutation, and perhaps had a profound understanding of alchemy. Or he might become a representative for some Scottish firm and travel everywhere in the world. Or somebody might come along who needed a young man exactly like himself, who could forge fake papers, who was quick at figures, who could entertain an old grandmother or squire somebody's daughter to a dance. He was versatile, and the world was wide! He swore to himself he would stick to a job once he got it. Patience and perseverance! Upward and onward!

Thanial followed the other travelers and entered the 'CUSTOMS IMMIGRATION HALL' where they could be seen blazing off, right and left, through the huge fireplaces. Coming from the First Class gangways Thanial was greeted, escorted, and fussed into the hall. The bags would be sent ahead of them, and was now being sorted in the hall under the initials of their owners. He heard someone repeat 'Botts. Botts. Botts!' so he walked to the stand with the letter B, where trunks and suitcases of all shapes and sizes formed small hills around him. He gave the man his bags and joined the crowd around the letter B. He noticed a striking young woman that was nearby, her luggage a mountain next to his. She noticed him.

Thanial turned away and proceeded to the Customs area, where he was held in a line as a large cage of yellow pixies was searched. He could hear the girl catch up with him.

'What's your secret?' she asked. She was obviously from France, judging by her accent.

'Excuse me?'

'No, it's just - you are British, aren't you? - no, I just, I have so much luggage, and you're so, uh, streamlined. It's humiliating.' The girl was young, blond and well-dressed. Her curious eyes were asking for more, almost coming across as flirtatious.

Thanial shrugged. They opened a second cage of the passenger ahead.

'I'm Fleur, by the way. Fleur Bourgeois.'

'Anton, Anton Lestrange. Hello.' He greeted her with a handshake.

Just a dainty slip of the tongue, Thanial thought self-justifying. It wasn't that uncommon for him when he'd immersed himself in something for long periods.

They both finally passed through immigration and headed down towards the fireplaces. Thanial heard her catch up to him again.

'You're not the Broom Lestranges?

Ideas dashed around in his head - he thought quickly. 'Trying not to be,' Thanial said. 'Trying to switch brooms.'

'So now, did they put your suitcase in the wrong pile? It's just - back there - weren't you under the B stand? I thought I saw you there.'

'My father wants me here, in London. He builds brooms. I'd rather fly them. I travel under my mother's name.'

'Which is?'

'Adine,' he answered quickly, and she looked bewildered. 'Just kidding,' he added and smiled.

She returned the smile. 'The funny thing is,' she said, 'I'm not Bourgeois either. I'm Delacour.'

Thanial nodded, recognizing the name. 'As in the...?'

'As in the Textile Delacours,' she sighed, 'Trying to shrug off the dress. I travel under my mother's name, too.'

'Bourgeois.'

'Right.'

They had arrived at a crossroads between two fireplaces - graphic signs above explained the choices: one hearth for Birmingham - the other for Southhampton: They were going in different directions.

Mss. Delacour offered her hand. 'So - partners in disguise.'

Thanial shook it. 'Bye.'

* * *

When he'd reached Liverpool he strolled several times round the terminal, but very slowly, so that the travelers always passed him two or three times before he had been around once, then settled down in a chair for a fierce cigarette and thought more on his own destiny. There had been a problem with the floo-system and he'd now waited two hours. After a homemade sandwich, he pottered around a public toilet, basking in its privacy, doing absolutely nothing. He'd later sat on the loo with quill and parchment in hand; thought about what to write to the Lestranges, but - he'd actually amused himself instead, by adding an imaginary postdated paragraph about finding Anton and living with him in his Hogsmeade house, about the slow but steady progress he was making in persuading Anton to come home, about the village, the weather, the cafe life, and he got so carried away that it went on for eight or ten papers and he knew he would never mail any of it, so he wrote on about Anton's not being romantically interested in Ginervra (he gave a complete character analysis of Ginny) so it was not Ginny who was holding Anton, though Mrs. Lestrange had thought it might be, etc., etc., until the floor was covered with sheets of papers and the call came for him. The floo-system was at last working.

He thought suddenly of one summer day when he had been about eight, when he had been on a trip with Aunt Kate and a woman friend of hers to Knockturn Alley, and they had got stuck in a nasty situation with some wizards in some alleyway. It had been a hot summer day, and Aunt Dottie had made him carry their bags, so she commanded him to get her wand. He'd done so and then she'd chased them away with stunners. Kate and her friend had then made haste and disappeared from Thanial. He remembered running between huge, billowing capes and legs, always about to touch the back of Aunt Kate's robe and never being quite able to, because she had kept inching along as fast as she could go in the busy street, not willing to wait for him a minute, and yelling, 'Come on, come on, slowpoke!' back at him all the time. When he had finally made it to her and caught her hand, with tears of frustration and anger running down his cheeks, she had said gaily to her friend, 'Sissy! He's a sissy from the ground up. Probably just like his father was!' It was a wonder he had emerged from such treatment as well as he had. And just what, he wondered, made Aunt Kate think his father had been a sissy? Could she, had she, ever cited a single thing? No.

Getting back into the line for Manchester, fortified morally by the luxurious surroundings and inwardly by the abundance of well-prepared food his ticket granted, he tried to take an objective look at his past life. The last four years had been for the most part a waste, there was no denying that. A series of haphazard jobs, long perilous intervals with no job at all and consequent demoralization because of having no money, and then taking up with stupid, silly people in order not to be lonely, or because they could offer him something for a while, as Marc Gross had. It was not a record to be proud of, considering he had such high aspirations. He had wanted to learn magic, though at eleven he had not had the faintest idea of the difficulties, the necessary training, or even the necessary talent. He had thought he had the necessary talent and that all he would have to do was get a wand, but his birthcraft had killed all his courage and his hope - at least for a time. He had had no reserve of money, so he had taken the accounting job for a known Alchemist, Nicolas Flamel, who'd pitied him, which at least had removed him from London for a while. He had been afraid that Aunt Kate would come look for him outside the city, though he hadn't done anything wrong, just run off to make his own way in the world as millions of young men had done before him. He'd changed his name to Barthanial Botts before working for Mr. Flamel, so she never found him. He learned of her tragic death only a few weeks after - it affected him more than he'd assumed it would.

His main mistake had been that he had never stuck to anything, he thought, like the accounting job at Mr. Flamel's house that might have worked into an apprenticeship, if he had not been so completely discouraged by the slowness of the old alchemist - never spilling the beans, never letting him have just a sniff of his Magnum Opus. He'd been so impatient that he'd copied as many as Mr. Flamel's notes as could get his hands on, and called it quits. Well, he blamed Aunt Kate to some extent for his lack of perseverance, never giving him credit when he was younger for anything he had stuck to - like him binge-reading all nine books by Paracelsus when he was nine. He'd taken a yearly quiz and had won a silver medal from Flourish Blotts for 'Memorizing, Internalizing, and Realizing'. It was like looking back at another person to remember himself then, a skinny, sniveling wretch with an eternal cold in the nose, who had still managed to win a medal for memorizing, internalizing, and realizing. Aunt Kate had hated him when he had a cold; she used to take her dirty handkerchief and nearly wrench his nose off, wiping it.

Thanial writhed standing in line as he thought of it, but he writhed elegantly, adjusting the crease of his trousers.

He remembered the vows he had made, even at the age of eight, to run away from Aunt Kate, the violent scenes he had imagined - Aunt Kate trying to hold him in to the streets, and he hitting her with his fists, flinging her to the ground and throttling her, and finally tearing the big brooch off her dress and stabbing her a million times in the throat with it. He had run away at eleven and had been brought back, and he had done it again at thirteen and succeeded. And it was astounding and pitiful how naive he had been, how little he had known about the way the world worked, as if he had spent so much of his time hating Aunt Kate and scheming how to escape her, that he had not had enough time to learn and grow. He remembered the way he had felt when he had been fired from the owl-postoffice job during his first month after Flamel's, and back in London. He had held the job less than two weeks, because he hadn't been strong enough to lift mail crates eight hours a day, but he had done his best and knocked himself out trying to hold the job, and when they had fired him, he remembered how horribly unjust he had thought it. He remembered deciding then that the world was full of Death Eaters, Dark Lords, Aunts, and that you had to be an animal, as tough as the gorillas who worked with him at the post office, or starve. He remembered that right after that, he had stolen a loaf of bread from a shop-counter in the Alley and had taken it home and devoured it, feeling that the world owed a loaf of bread to him, and more.

"Mr. Botts?" One of the employees asked in a friendly manner handing him a bag of floo-powder, and gestured towards the fireplace.

"Yes. Thanks." Thanial said and stepped inside. He tucked his elbows close, and threw the powder. 'Manchester!'As he traveled he noticed other fireplaces and hearths zooming past, but the speed was far too great to make anything out clearly. And light!

Thanial dusted his pants off, got into the next line, pulled his cap down over his eyes and settled his hands in his pockets. His aloofness, he knew, was causing a little comment among the travelers. He had not smiled at the silly girls who kept looking at him hopefully and giggling in front of him. He imagined the speculations of the people: Is he an American! I think so, but he doesn't act like an American, does he? Most Americans are so noisy, maybe he's French. He's terribly serious, isn't he, and he can't be more than seventeen. He must have something very important on his mind. Yes, he had. The present and the future of Barthanial Botts.

* * *

 **A/N:** I'm currently having problems uploading on FF, but I'll post new chapters regularly on RedPigeon AO3.


	4. Hogsmeade

Edinburgh was no more than a glimpse out of a bus station window of a lighted cafe front, complete with rain-streaked awning, sidewalk tables, and boxes of hedges, like a tourist poster illustration, and otherwise a series of long station platforms down which he followed dumpy little blue-clad porters with his luggage, and at last the sleeper that would take him all the way into nowhere, from where he would walk. He could come back to Edinburgh at some other time, he thought. He was eager to get to Hogsmeade.

He boarded the bus at two pm. The road followed the shore and went through little towns where they made brief stops - Perth, Dundee, Stonehaven, Aberdeen. Thanial listened eagerly to the names of the towns that the driver called out. From Aberdeen, the road was a narrow ridge cut into the side of the rock cliffs that Thanial had seen in the photographs at the Lestranges. Now and then he caught glimpses of little villages down at the water's edge, houses like white crumbs of bread, specks that were the heads of people swimming near the shore. Thanial saw a boulder-sized rock in the middle of the road that had evidently broken off a cliff. The driver dodged it with a nonchalant swerve.

When he woke up later that afternoon, he was in no-man's land. Something very pleasant happened then. Thanial was watching the landscape out of the window, when he heard some Scottish in the seat in front of him say something with the word 'Hog' in it. Trees were gliding by on both sides of the bus. Thanial went to the front of the bus to get a better look, looking automatically for a sign or a clearing of some sort, though he was not at all sure that the next stop was his or that Hogsmeade even would be visible from here, but there it was! - a thick white board, sticking up out of the dirt beside a bus-stop, saying Hogsmeade!

'Cairngorms National Park!'

Thanial sprang up and yanked his suitcase down from the rack. He had another suitcase on the roof, which the driver took down for him. Then the bus went on, and Thanial was alone at the side of the road, his suitcases at his feet. There were trees above him, straggling up the mountain, and trees below, their bushy branches fluttering from the brisk mountain air. A white sign read Hogsmeade Vista and he ventured down the small trail with his suitcases in hand.

It took him twenty minutes before the forest thinned out. He began to see rustic cabins dotting the grassy hills as trees began to stand up like spikes, zigzagging the border of brick roads and unpolished homes. Rivers streamed through deep valleys, and Thanial thought it very picturesque. The town itself was what a village becomes with no city planning and a great enthusiasm for architecture. Every cottage was different; a maze of narrow winding streets, as complex as the heart. The streets were the veins, paved with dark stones, and the people were the blood.

It was bustling with liveliness. Small vendors crammed into narrow streets, some houses three and four stories high, owls fluttering about and hooting, witches chanting in a strange language with hats for spare change, large open-air marketplace with stall holders hollering out prices, narrow cobbled sidestreets, candy shops, taverns, pubs, potionéers with pepperup-potions out on the street in buckets.

Keeping an eye on his suitcases, Thanial went into a little house across the road marked Public Owls & Post, and inquired of the man behind the window where Antonio Lestrange's house was. The man seemed to understand, because he came out and pointed from the door up the road Thanial had come from, and mumbled in Scottish what seemed to be explicit directions how to get there.

'Jist up thaur, it's nae a lang way.'

Thanial thanked him, and asked if he could leave his two suitcases in the post office for a while, and the man seemed to understand this, too, and helped Thanial carry them inside.

He had to ask two more people where Antonio Lestrange's house was, but everybody seemed to know it, and the third person was able to point it out to him - a large two-story house with an iron gate on the road, and a balcony that projected over a steep edge. Thanial rang the metal bell beside the gate. An older woman came out of the house, wiping her hands on her apron.

'Mr. Lestrange?' Thanial asked hopefully.

The woman gave him a long, smiling answer in Scottish and pointed upward toward a grassy mountainside. 'Flyin',' she seemed to keep saying. 'Flyin'.'

Thanial nodded. 'Thank you.'

Should he go up to him as he was, or be more casual about it and take a broom with him? Or should he wait until the tea or cocktail hour? Or should he try to send him an owl first? He hadn't brought a broom with him, and he'd certainly have to get one here. Thanial went into one of the little shops near the post office that had Quidditch equipment and a broom in its tiny front window, and after browsing several cheap ancient-looking ones that were coated with dust that wouldn't do, or at least not adequately enough to project himself like he'd envisioned, he bought a newer used model for five galleons.

He got out and walked up a cobbled lane which he supposed led toward the hill. He went up a dozen steep stone steps, up another cobbled slope past shops and houses, up more steps, and finally he came to a level length of a grassy rock-dotted area, where there were a couple of people hanging around and a few playing Quidditch. Some adolescent Scottish boys in winter-clothing sitting on wooden benches at the edge of the hill inspected him thoroughly as he walked by. He felt mortified at the big heavy broom in his hand and at his light attire. He had forgotten to grab his warm coat from the suitcase. He was freezing. He rested the broom on the ground and stood for a moment on dewy grass, calmly surveying the groups of people near him. None of the people looked like Antonio, and the cold wind made his eyes water, keeping him from making out the people very far away. Thanial started to feel stupid just standing there. Then he took a deep breath, started to walk in a clear line, hiking across the green, and sat himself down on a bench at the edge. He took a breath and then heard a thudding noise and looked behind him.

Thanial saw him from a distance of about a few feet - unmistakably Anton, though he was a bit taller and his crinkly black hair looked longer than Thanial remembered it. He was with Ginny.

Thanial saw him get off his broom holding a snitch and noticed the initials 'E. M.' carved on the shaft. He'd read about a Quidditch-player in one of his books - Eunice Murray. Eunice had played as Seeker for the Montrose Magpies, and once campaigned for a 'faster Snitch because this is just too easy.' She'd apparently been one of the fastest seekers in modern times. Thanial got up and started to walk.

'Anton Lestrange?' Thanial asked, smiling.

Anton looked over. 'Yes?'

'I'm Thanial Botts. I knew you at Durmstrang several years ago. Remember?'

Anton looked blank.

'I think your father said he was going to write you about me.'

'Oh, yes!' Anton said, touching his forehead as if it was stupid of him to have forgotten... He put his broom down. 'Barthanial, what is it?'

'Please, just Thanial - Thanial Botts.'

'This is Ginny Weasley,' he said. 'Ginny, Thanial Botts.'

'How do you do?' Thanial said.

'How do you do?'

'How long are you here for?' Anton asked.

'I don't know yet,' Thanial said. 'I just got here. I'll have classes from next week at the school - I guess you do as well.'

Anton was looking him over, not entirely with approval, Thanial felt. Anton's arms were folded, his slim broom planted in the wet grass. Thanial still held his.

'Getting a house?' asked Anton.

'I don't know,' Thanial said undecidedly, as if he had been considering it.

'It's a good time to get a house, if you don't like the dynamic of the dormitories,' the girl said. 'The summer tourists have practically all gone. We could use a few more British around here in winter.'

Anton said nothing. He had retaken his broom beside the girl, and Thanial felt that he was waiting for him to say goodbye and move on. Thanial stood there, feeling cold and naked as the day he was born. He hated this feeling. This feeling he had not expected. Thanial's clammy fingers managed to extract his pack of cigarettes from his jacket, and offered it to Anton and the girl. Anton accepted one, and Thanial lighted it with his lighter.

'You don't seem to remember me from Durmstrang,' Thanial said.

'I can't really say I do,' Anton said. 'Where did I meet you?'

'I think - Wasn't it at Victor Krum's?' It wasn't, but he knew Anton knew Victor Krum, and Victor was a very respectable fellow.

'Oh,' said Anton, vaguely. 'I hope you'll excuse me. My memory's rotten for Norway these days. Most other places too.'

'It certainly is,' Ginny said, coming to Thanial's rescue. 'It's getting worse and worse. When did you get here, Thanial?'

'Just about an hour ago. I've just parked my suitcases at the post office.' He laughed.

'I'm going for another round,' Anton said, getting on his broom.

'Me too!' Ginny said. 'Coming, Thanial?'

Thanial stood frozen. Anton and the girl shot off the next second and went out quite far of the cliff - both seemed to be excellent flyers - and Thanial stayed near the edge and watched. When Anton and the girl came back down, Anton glanced questionably at him a moment and then said, as if he had been prompted by the girl, 'We're leaving. Would you like to come up to the house and have dinner with us?'

'Why, yes. Thanks very much.' Thanial helped them gather up the quaffles, the goggles, and a beater's bat.

Thanial thought they would never get there. Anton and Ginny went in front of him, taking the endless flights of stone steps slowly and steadily, one at a time. The weather had enervated Thanial. The muscles of his legs trembled on the level stretches. His fingers were already blue, and he had stretched the cap over his ears against the cool breeze, but he could still feel the wind freezing his eardrums slowly, making him dizzy and nauseous.

'Having a hard time?' Ginny asked, wearing a thick padded jacket and not out of breath at all. 'You'll get used to it, if you stay here. You should have seen this place during the snow storm in January.'

Thanial hadn't breath to reply anything.

Fifteen minutes later he was feeling better. He had had a warm shower, and he was sitting in a comfortable armchair in Anton's living-room with a martini in his hand. At Ginny's suggestion, he had kept his clothes on, with his blanket over it. The table in the room had been set for three while he was in the shower, and Ginny was in the kitchen now, talking to the maid. Thanial wondered if Ginny lived here. The house was certainly big enough. It was sparsely furnished, as far as Thanial could see, in a pleasant mixture Scottish antique and British bohemian. He had seen two original Da Vinci drawings in the hall.

Ginny came into the room with her martini. 'That's Hogwarts over there.' She pointed through a window. 'See it? The tower just behind that mountain there.'

It was hopeless to pick it out from all the misty clouds, but Thanial pretended he saw it. 'Have you been here long?'

'A year. All last winter, and it was quite a winter. Snow every day except one for three whole months!'

'Really!'

'Um-hm, I came late my classes because of the snowfall, but I don't regret it.' Ginny sipped her martini and gazed out contentedly at her little village. She was now wearing the sweater he'd seen in the photos, a tomato-colored sweater, almost matching her hair. She wasn't bad-looking, Thanial supposed, and she even had a good figure, if one liked the rather solid type. Thanial didn't, himself.

'I understand Anton makes brooms,' Thanial said.

'Yes, the E. M. Want to see it?' She pointed at the broom that he now saw was hanging from the corner of a wall. Brooms look very much alike, but Ginny said Anton's shaft was thinner than most of them and had a double set of runed enchantments. Thanial had wanted so bad to laugh when she'd talked so of Anton's shaft, but had managed to suppress it behind his drink.  
Anton came out and poured himself a cocktail from the pitcher on the table. He wore badly ironed white duck trousers and a terracotta linen shirt the color of his skin. 'Sorry there's no ice. I haven't got a refrigerator.'

Thanial smiled. 'I brought a bathrobe for you. Your mother said you'd asked for one. Also some socks.'

'Do you know my mother?'

'I happened to meet your father just before I left London, and he asked me to dinner at his house.'

'Oh? How was my mother?'

'She was up and around that evening. I'd say she gets tired easily.'

Anton nodded. 'I had a letter this week saying she was a little better. At least there's no particular crisis right now, is there?'

'I don't think so. I think your father was more worried a few weeks ago.' Thanial hesitated. 'He's also a little worried because you won't come home.'

'Rabastan's always worried about something,' Anton said.

Ginny and the maid came out of the kitchen carrying a steaming platter of tiny pies and potatoes, a big bowl of salad, and a plate of bread. Anton and Ginny began to talk about the enlargement of some restaurant down the street. The proprietor was widening the terrace so there would be room for people to dance in the summer. They discussed it in detail, slowly, like people in a small town who take an interest in the most minute changes in the neighborhood. There was nothing Thanial could contribute.

He spent the time examining Anton's rings. He liked them both: a large rectangular green stone set in gold on the third finger of his right hand, and on the little finger of the other hand a signet ring, larger and more ornate than the signet Mr. Lestrange had worn. Anton had long, bony hands, a little like his own hands, Thanial thought.

'By the way, your father showed me around the Lestrange-Parkinson yards before I left,' Thanial said. 'He told me he'd made a lot of changes since you've seen it last. I was quite impressed.'

'I suppose he offered you a job, too. Always on the lookout for promising young men.' Anton turned his fork round and round, and thrust a neat mass of salat into his mouth.

'No, he didn't.' Thanial felt the luncheon couldn't have been going worse. Had Mr. Lestrange told Anton that he was coming to give him a lecture on why he should go home? Or was Anton just in a foul mood? Anton had certainly changed since Thanial had observed him last at the Malfoys.

Anton brought out his wand a waved it clockwise for a moment. In a few seconds there were four little cups of coffee, one of which Ginny took into the kitchen to the maid.

'What inn are you staying at?' Ginny asked Thanial.

Thanial smiled. 'I haven't found one yet. What do you recommend?'

'The Three Broomsticks' the best. It's just this side of Hog's Head. The only other inn is Hog's Head, but -'

'They say Hog's Head got cooties in his beds,' Anton interrupted.

'That's fleas. Hog's Head is cheap,' Ginny said earnestly, 'but the service is -'

'Non-existent,' Anton supplied.

'You're in a fine mood today, aren't you?' Ginny said to Anton, flicking a crumb of bread at him.

'In that case, I'll try the Three Broomsticks,' Thanial said, standing up. 'I must be going.'

Neither of them urged him to stay. Anton walked with him to the front gate. Ginny was staying on. Thanial wondered if Anton and Ginny were having an affair, one of those old, faute de mieux affairs that wouldn't necessarily be obvious from the outside, because neither was very enthusiastic. Ginny was in love with Anton, Thanial thought, but Anton couldn't have been more indifferent to her if she had been the fifty-year-old Scottish maid sitting there.

'I'd like to see some of your brooms sometimes,' Thanial said to Anton.

'Fine. Well, I suppose we'll see you again if you're around until start of term,' and Thanial thought he added it only because he remembered that he had brought him the bathrobe and the socks.

'I enjoyed the lunch. Good-bye, Anton.' The iron gate clanged.


	5. Turning the Tables

Thanial took a room at The Three Broomsticks. It was eleven o'clock by the time he got his suitcases up from the post office, and he had barely the energy to hang up his best dress robes before he fell down on the bed. The voices of some Scottish boys who were talking under his window drifted up as distinctly as if they had been in the room with him, and the insolent, cackling laugh of one of them, bursting again and again through the pattering syllables, made Thanial twitch and writhe. He imagined them discussing his expedition to Maister Lestrange, and making unflattering speculations as to what might happen next.

What was he doing here? He had no friends here and he didn't understand the accent too well. Suppose he got sick? He hadn't practiced healing. Who would take care of him?

Thanial got up, knowing he was going to be sick, yet moving slowly because he knew just when he was going to be sick and that there would be time for him to get to the bathroom. In the bathroom he lost his dinner, and also the Sandwich from Liverpool, he thought. He went back to his bed and fell instantly asleep.

When he awoke groggy and weak, the sun was shining and it was nine-thirty by his new watch. He went to a window and looked out, looking automatically for Anton's big house and projecting balcony among the grey and stony houses that dotted the climbing ground in front of him. He found the sturdy reddish balustrade of the balcony. Was Ginny still there? Were they talking about him? He heard a laugh rising over the little din of street noises, tense and resonant, and as opulent as if it had been a sentence in British. For an instant he saw Anton and Ginny as they crossed a space between houses on the main street. They turned a corner, and Thanial went to his side window for a better view. There was an alley by the side of the inn just below his window, and Anton and Ginny came down it, Anton in his white trousers and terracotta shirt, Ginny in a skirt and blouse. She could have gone home, Thanial thought. Or else she had clothes at Anton's house, which probably was the case. Anton talked with a Scotsman in front of the little Quidditch-shop, gave him some money, and the Scottish touched his cap, then untied a very long broom from a bundle. Thanial watched Anton help Ginny on the rod. The long broom began to float with them both. Behind them, over a mountaintop, the orange sun had shown itself. Thanial could hear Ginny's laugh, and a shout from Anton toward the Scotsman. Thanial realized he was seeing them on a typical day - a drink after the early breakfast, probably, then the flying before lunch. Then appetizers at one of the cafes in the village. They were enjoying a perfectly ordinary day, as if he did not exist. Why should Anton want to come back to pureblood promenades and their politics and starched collars and a nine-to-five job? Or even a chauffeured car and vacations in France and Scandinavia? It wasn't as much fun as flying a broom in old clothes and being answerable to nobody for the way he spent his time, and having his own house with a good-natured maid who probably took care of everything for him. And money besides, to take trips if he wanted to. Thanial envied him with a heartbreaking surge of envy and self-pity.

Anton's father had probably said in his letter the very things that would set Anton against him, Thanial thought. How much better it would have been if he had just sat down in one of the pubs down at the market and struck up an acquaintance with Anton out of the blue! He probably could have persuaded Anton to come home eventually, if he had begun like that, but this way it was useless. Thanial cursed himself for having been so heavy-handed and so humorless yesterday. Nothing he took desperately seriously ever worked out. He'd found that out years ago.

He'd let a few days go by, he thought. The first step, anyway, was to make Anton like him. That he wanted more than anything else in the world.

Later that afternoon Thanial was having a stroll and saw Anton descending the long broom by himself, making a bumpy touchdown in the square. Thanial stopped by a steep flight of steps, a book in hand, unseen, and watched all of it intrigued. A young Scottish beauty was having a spikey, flirtatious exchange with Anton, then climbed on the broom, behind him.

'I've been looking for you everywhere!' Anton said.

They started to ascend and she struck his arm. 'Ah, today you're looking for me. And where have you been the rest of the week? Pig. With your Weasley? I hate you, you know?'

'What?'

'I hate you.'

Thanial had heard them and stood still, watching them as they sped up the hills and out of sight.

* * *

Thanial wanted to train his flying skills - in secret of course - in any case, he reasoned he'd need to learn it at some point. He let three days go by - only managing a few feet above the ground, and that would work. Then he went up to the grassy area on the fourth morning around noon, and found Anton alone, in the same spot Thanial had seen him first, in front of the grey rocks that extended across the field from the mountain-walls. He was sitting on one with his broom grasped between the legs, reading.

'Morning!' Thanial called. 'Where's Ginny?

'Good morning. She's probably working a little late. She'll be up.'

'Working?'

'She's studying. Has a lot of catching up to do.'

'Oh.'

Anton puffed on a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. 'Where've you been keeping yourself? I thought you'd gone to the school by now.'

'Sick,' Thanial said casually, sitting down on a rock, but not too near Anton's rock.

'Oh, the usual upset stomach?'

'Hovering between life and the bathroom,' Thanial said, smiling. 'But I'm all right now.' He'd actually only been sick his first night, though he'd been suffering mildly from constant nausea since beginning his training on the broom.

Thanial went down to the edge, went confidently up on his broom and flew a few meters off the hill, circling slowly around. He kept calm by avoiding to look down, floated around a little trying to look casual, then came slowly back again. He wanted to vomit but held his appearance.

'Can I invite you for a drink at the inn before you go down to your house?' Thanial asked Anton. 'And Ginny, too, if she comes. I wanted to give you your bathrobe and socks, you know.'

'Oh yes. Thanks very much. I'd like to have a drink.' He went back to the newspaper.

Thanial stretched out on his rock. He heard the village clock strike one.

'Doesn't look as if Ginny is coming up,' Anton said. 'I think I'll be going along.'

Thanial got up. They walked down to the The Three Broomsticks, saying practically nothing to each other, except that Thanial invited Anton to lunch with him, and Anton declined because the maid had his lunch ready at the house, he said. They went up to Thanial's room, and Anton tried the bathrobe on and held the socks up to his bare feet.

Both the bathrobe and the socks were the right size, and, as Thanial had anticipated, Anton was extremely pleased with the bathrobe. 'And this,' Thanial said, taking a square package wrapped in apothecary paper from a bureau drawer. 'Your mother sent you some coughing-potions, too.'

Anton smiled. 'I don't need them anymore. That was sinusitis. But I'll take them off your hands.'

Now Anton had everything, Thanial thought, everything he had to offer. He was going to refuse the invitation for a drink, too, Thanial knew. Thanial followed him toward the door. 'You know, your father's very concerned about your coming home. He asked me to give you a good talking to, which of course I won't, but I'll still have to tell him something. I promised to write him.'

Anton turned with his hand on the doorknob. 'I don't know what my father thinks I'm doing over here - mingling with low-class muggle-sympathizers or what. I'll probably fly home this winter for a few days, but I don't intend to stay over there. I'm happier here. If I went back there to live, my father would be after me to work in Lestrange-Parkinson. I couldn't possibly fly. I happen to like flying, and I think it's my business how I spend my life.'

'I understand. But he said he wouldn't try to make you work in his firm if you come back, unless you wanted to work in the designing department, and he said you liked that.'

'Well - my father and I have been over that. Thanks, anyway, Thanial, for delivering the message and the clothes. It was very nice of you. Perhaps I'll see you at the school sometime.' Anton held out his hand.

Thanial couldn't have made himself take the hand. This was the very edge of failure, failure as far as Mr. Lestrange was concerned, and failure with Anton. 'I think-'

Anton interrupted him by grabbing his hand and shaking it for him. The door closed behind Anton as he left. He was gone.

Thanial tried to be calm, tried to keep smiling, though he could have burst into tears like a child. He gave the door a long, withering look, like if it had been a mirror, and he was looking at himself. There were very few things that got under his skin, Thanial thought self-justifyingly, but this was one of them: failing like this, the humiliation, the anxiety, the preparation he had made, studying the Quidditch rulebook, the game's lore, and even practicing the damned sport! A few knocks on the door shook him back to reality and he opened it with a jolt.

A wrinkled house-elf held up a big basket of fruit and Thanial took it, disappointed that it hadn't been Anton. He seized the little white envelope eagerly and closed the door. The card inside said: Thanks again and bless you, Barthanial. All our good wishes go to you.

Adine and Rabastan Lestrange

The basket had a tall handle and it was entirely under yellow cellophane - apples and pears and grapes and a couple of candy bars and several little bottles of liqueurs. Thanial had never received a thank you basket. To him, they had always been something you saw in florists' windows for fantastic prices and laughed at. Now he found himself with tears in his eyes, and he put his face down in his hands suddenly and began to sob.

He would have to give it one last shot before the start of term. Have to!

* * *

Thanial heard a door close from the living-room 'Sorry, sorry, sorry. I know, I'm late, I'm a swine,' Anton's voice sounded.

'Did you forget where you live? It's four o'clock,' he heard Ginny say.

'I just woke up. I'm sorry.'

'You just woke up!'

'Diggory's in town! Cedric and I - we took the brooms out, we were hunting, and then it was dawn and we'd caught absolutely nothing. We sat up camp.'

'Well, we ate everything without you.'

'We?'

'Yes, Thanial Botts' here.'

Thanial appeared with the tray to collect more dishes.

'Oh, Thanial, hello, how are you? We thought you'd gone to Hogwarts by now. The banquet is still tomorrow right?'

Thanial smiled and sat down opposite to Ginny. 'No, still here. And yes - I'll be going tomorrow morning.'

'Thanial was telling me about his trip over,' Ginny said and chuckled, 'Made me laugh so much I got a nosebleed.'

'Is that good?'

'Shut up!' Ginny said flicking Anton with a napkin. They began to wrestle, and after some time Thanial started to feel very excluded.

'I'm intruding.' Thanial said, getting up.

Anton was holding Ginny in a tight lock. 'Can you mix a martini?' He asked.

Thanial could not, and was hesitant. 'Sure.'

Ginny sighed and pushed herself out of Anton's grip. 'I'll do it,' she said giddily going to the kitchen, 'I make a fabulous martini.'

Ginny could at most be sixteen, Thanial had thought. From what he had heard of the Weasleys, there were working-class, a huge family, and he reckoned Ginny had gotten a taste of the good life a bit too soon.

'Everybody should have one talent,' Anton said smiling, looking him over. 'What's yours?'

Thanial answered without missing a beat. 'Forging signatures. Telling lies. Impersonating practically anybody.'

Anton looked like he enjoyed the banter. 'That's three.' he said, 'Nobody should have more than one talent. Okay, do an impression.'

'Now? Okay. Wait a minute.' Thanial thought for a couple of seconds. This would be it! 'Talent...' his voice had aged, his face changed, '...The only talent my son has is for cashing his allowance.'

Anton looked absolutely thrown. 'What? What's this?'

Thanial continued. 'I like to fly, believe me, I love to fly! Instead I make brooms and other people fly them.'

'Stop! It's too much!' Anton gaped, seeming impressed. 'You're making all the hairs on my neck stand up!'

'Muggles, let's face it, they're just insolent creatures.' Thanal said in the low voice - relishing it.

'I feel like he's here. Horrible. Like the old bastard is here right now!' Anton beamed. 'That's brilliant! Ginny! You've got to hear this!'

Ginny returned with the drinks. 'What? What?'

'Meet my father,' Anton gestured with taken seriousness, 'Dougal Rabastan Lestrange the first.'

Thanial continued in character. 'Pleasure to meet you, Anton's made a fine catch. I know Adine thinks so.'

'What's going on?'

'Uncanny!' Anton said.

'I don't get it,' Ginny said confused.

'Could you ever conceive of going there, Barthanial, and bringing him back?' Thanial kept going. It was his one last chance to amuse Anton or to repel him, to make Anton burst out laughing or throw him out the door in disgust. But the smile was coming, the long corners of his mouth going up, the way Thanial remembered Anton's smile.

Anton was taken aback, but the smile was there. 'What?

'I'd pay you. If you would go to Scotland and persuade my son to come home. I'd pay you forty-five galleons.'

'What do you mean?' Anton frowned. 'Paid your way?'

Thanial relaxed his face again. 'Yes.'

'Paid your way! What do you know! He's getting desperate, isn't he?'

'He approached me in a shop in Diagon Alley,' Thanial said. 'I told him I wasn't a close friend of yours, but he insisted I could help if I came over. I told him I'd try.'

'How did he ever meet you?'

'Through the Malfoys. I hardly know the Malfoys, but there it was! I was your friend and I could do you a lot of good.'

They laughed.

'I don't want you to think I'm someone who tried to take advantage of your father,' Thanial said. 'I expect to finish my education here, get a job, and I'll be able to pay him back the money eventually.'

'Oh, don't bother! It goes on the Lestrange-Parkinson expense list. I can just see Dad approaching you in a shop! Which shop was it?'

'TerrorTours. Matter of fact, he followed me from the Leaky Cauldron.' Thanial watched Anton's face for a sign of recognition of the TerrorTous, a very popular travel agency, but there was no recognition.

'I'm not sure I'm following,' Ginny said, still holding that perplexed expression.

Thanial took a breath and began again. He made it very funny and Ginny laughed like someone who hadn't had anything funny to laugh at in years. 'When I saw him coming in TerrorTours after me, I was ready to climb out of a back window!' His tongue rattled on almost independently of his brain. His brain was estimating how high his stock was shooting up with Anton and Ginny. He could see it in their faces.

They all had a drink in The Three Broomsticks down the road. They drank to Dougal Rabastan Lestrange.

'I just realised today's Sunday,' Ginny said. 'You'd better come up and have dinner with us before you leave tomorrow. We always have the roast on Sunday. You know it's an old British custom, The Sunday Roast.'

The walk down to Anton's house didn't seem as tense as previously. Delicious smells of roasting meats drifted in the living-room. Anton made some martinis. Thanial browsed though Antons book-collection - most of them were about runes-, and then came and poured himself a drink, just like the first time, but the atmosphere now was totally changed.

Anton sat down in a leather chair and swung his legs over one of the arms. 'Tell me more,' he said, smiling. 'What kind of work do you do? You said you might take a job after Hogwarts.'

'Why? Do you have a job for me?'

'Can't say that I have.'

'Oh, I can do a number of things - transmutation, deconstructing, reconstructing - I've got an unfortunate talent for alchemy. No matter how empty my pocket gets, I can always create a knut from a piece scrap metal. I can forge a signature, do accounting, handle dice, impersonate practically anybody though I'm hardly a Metamorphmagus, cheating, thieving - and do a one-man show in a pub in case the regular entertainer's sick. Shall I go on?' Thanial was leaning forward, counting them off on his fingers. He could have gone on.

'What kind of a one-man show?' Anton asked.

'Well -' Thanial sprang up. 'This for example.' He struck a pose with one hand on his hip, one foot extended. 'This is Lady Assburden sampling the London subway. She's never even been in the underground of muggle-London, but she wants to take back some British experiences.' Thanial did it all in pantomime, searching for a coin, finding it didn't go into the slot, buying a token, puzzling over which stairs to go down, registering alarm at the noise and the long express ride, puzzling again as to how to get out of the place - here Ginny came out, and Anton told her it was a Witch in the subway, but Ginny didn't seem to get it and asked, 'What?' - walking through a door which could only be the door of the 'men's room' from her twitching horror of this and that, which augmented until she fainted. Thanial fainted gracefully on to the couch.

'Wonderful!' Anton yelled, clapping.

Ginny wasn't laughing. She stood there looking a little blank.

Neither of them bothered to explain it to her. She didn't look as if she had that kind of sense of humor, anyway, Thanial thought.

Thanial took a gulp of his martini, terribly pleased with himself. 'I'll do another for you sometime,' he said to Ginny, but mostly to indicate to Anton that he had another one to do.

'Dinner ready?' Anton asked her. 'I'm starving.'

'I'm waiting for the darned potatoes to get done. You know that front hole. It'll barely make anything come to a boil. I had to use incendio three times.' She smiled at Thanial. 'Anton's very old-fashioned about some things, Thanial, the things he doesn't have to fool with. There's still only a wood stove here, and he refuses to buy a refrigerator or even an icebox.'

'One of the reasons I fled London,' Anton said. 'Those things are a waste of money in a country with so many servants. What'd Aggie do with herself, if she could cook a meal in half an hour?' He stood up. 'Come on, Thanial, I'll show you some of my brooms.'

Anton led the way into the big room Thanial had looked into a couple of times on his way to and from the entrance, the room with a long couch under the two windows and the big workbench in the middle of the floor. 'This is a faster model I'm working on now.' He gestured to unpolished stick with rune-encrypted metal rings by the ends.

'Oh,' Thanial said with interest. It wasn't pretty in his opinion, probably in anybody's opinion. The wood's color was a bit off. Red as Ginny's hair.

'And these - a lot of old ones,' Anton said with a deprecatory laugh, though obviously he wanted Thanial to say something complimentary about them, because obviously he was proud of them. They were all slick and curved and monotonously similar. The combination of numerical and lexical runes was in nearly every one, numerical numbers representing air and balance and Lexical ones for partnership and trust. Thanial had gotten plenty of time to rent books in between jobs, so he'd gotten to a point of understanding a few ancient alphabets.

'My Chaser effort,' Anton said, bracing another sweeper against his knee.

Thanial winced with almost a personal shame. It was red again, undoubtedly, though with long snake-like straws by the end, and worst of all the absurd length of it. 'Yes, I like that,' Thanial said. Mr. Lestrange had been right. Yet it gave Anton something to do, kept him out of trouble, Thanial supposed, just as it gave thousands of lousy amateur craftsmen all over Britain something to do. He was only sorry that Anton fell into this category as an inventor, because he wanted Anton to be much more.

'I won't ever set the world on fire as a broom-designer,' Anton said, 'but I get a great deal of pleasure out of it.'

'Yes,' Thanial wanted to forget all about the brooms and forget that Anton designed. 'Can I see the rest of the house?'

'Absolutely! You haven't seen the salon, have you?' Anton opened a door in the hall that led into a very large room with a fireplace, sofas, more bookshelves, and three exposures - to the balcony, to the land on the other side of the house, and to the front garden. Anton said that in winter he did not use the room, because he liked to save it as a change of scene for the summer. It was more of a bookish den than a living-room, Thanial thought. It surprised him. He had Anton figured out as a young man who was not particularly brainy, and who probably spent most of his time flying. Perhaps he was wrong. But he didn't think he was wrong in feeling that Anton was bored at the moment and needed someone to show him how to have fun - besides that other girl he'd seen Anton with in the square.

'What's upstairs?' Thanial asked.

The 'upstairs was disappointing: Anton and Ginny's bedroom in the corner of the house above the terrace was stark and empty - a bed, a chest of drawers, and a rocking chair, looking lost and unrelated in all the space - a double bed, too, wider than most beds he'd seen before. The other three rooms of the second floor were not even furnished, or at least not completely. One of them held only wood and a pile of iron bars. There was certainly no sign of Ginny anywhere, least of all in Bedroom bedroom.

'How about going to Hogwarts with me tomorrow?' Thanial asked. 'I'm not quite sure which road is the easiest, and I would like the company.'

'All right,' Anton said. 'I was planning to go tomorrow afternoon when the train arrives. I always seem to run late anyway, so I might as well go in the morning. We could hire a carriage.'

'That doesn't sound like a bad idea,' Thanial said, hoping to avoid Ginny in the excursion. 'They have stables in Hogsmeade?'

'No. The carts drive themselves and you can always hire one, if you feel like it.'

'Fine,' Thanial said, though he still wasn't sure that Ginny wouldn't be asked along. 'Ginny still sees her family?' he asked as they went down the stairs.

'With a vengeance! She owls them regularly, and she frequently takes the floo home - they don't really approve of me, her mother in particular. Could that woman talk! They judge her, she says, and Ginny consoles by embracing Hogsmeade.'

'I had the idea she was in love with you.'

'With me? Don't be silly!'

The dinner was ready when they came back to the living-room. There were even hot biscuits with butter, made by Ginny.

'Do you know Vic Simmons in London?' Thanial asked Anton. Vic had quite a Bibliotheque of rare books and collectibles in London, but Anton didn't know of him. Thanial asked him about two or three other people, also without success.

Thanial hoped Ginny would leave after the coffee, but she didn't. When she left the room for a moment Thanial said, 'Can I invite you for drinks at the inn tonight?'

'Thank you. At what time?'

'Nine-thirty? - After all, it's your father's money,' Thanial added with a smile.

Anton laughed. 'All right, cocktails and a good bottle of wine, Ginny!' Ginny was just coming back. 'We're having drinks at The Three Broomsticks again, compliments of the old man!'

So Ginny was coming, too, and there was nothing Thanial could do about it. After all, it was Anton's father's money.

Having drinks that evening was pleasant, but Ginny's presence kept Thanial from talking about anything he would have liked to talk about, and he did not feel even like being witty in Ginny's presence. Ginny knew some of the people in the inn, and after a while she excused herself and took her coffee over to another table and sat down.

' I'm a Hufflepuff. The think the house-system is bizarre, but where do you hope to end up?' Anton asked.

'Oh, any of them will do, I'd say,' Thanial replied.

'Because -' Anton's face had flushed a little over the cheekbones. The wine had put him in a good mood. 'If you don't care anyway, why don't you stay with me for a while? There's no use staying in Hogwarts, unless you really prefer it.'

'Thank you very much,' Thanail said.

'There's a bed in the maid's room, which you didn't see. Aggie doesn't sleep in. I'm sure we can make out with the furniture that's scattered around, if you think you'd like to.'

'I'm sure I'd like to. By the way, the forty-five galleons your father gave me for expenses - I've still got about forty left. I think we both ought to have a little fun on it, don't you?'

'Forty galleons!' Anton said, as if he'd never seen that much money in one lump in his life. 'We could pick new brooms with that! Firebolts even!'

Thanial didn't contribute to the broom idea. That wasn't his idea of having fun. He wanted to take a weekend abroad perhaps. Ginny was coming back, he saw.

Early the next morning he went down to Public Owls & Post. He'd gotten a single letter that he opened quickly: Dear Barthanial Botts. Thank you for choosing Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The administration would like to consult you before the sorting, so please find yourself at my office by four-fifteen Post Meridiem. Yours Sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress.


	6. The Keys to Hogwarts

Anton and Aggie had installed an armoire and a couple of chairs in one of the upstairs rooms, and Anton had thumb-tacked a few plates of different wood on the walls. Thanial helped Anton levitate the narrow iron bed from the maid's room using his fake wand. They were finished before twelve, a little light-headed from the wine they had been sipping as they worked.

'Are we ready?' Thanial asked.

'Certainly.' Anton looked at his watch. 'It's only a quarter to twelve. We can make the twelve o'clock cart.'

They took nothing with them but their jackets and Thanial's bag of papers and documentation. The cart was just arriving as they reached the train station. Thanial noticed immediately that the carts didn't drag themselves as Anton had said.

If he had had to give them a name, he supposed he would have called them horses, though there was something reptilian about them, too. They were completely fleshless, their black coats clinging to their skeletons, of which every bone was visible. Their heads were dragonish, and their pupil-less eyes white and staring. Wings sprouted from each wither — vast, black leathery wings that looked as though they ought to belong to giant bats. Standing still and quiet in the gathering sunshine, the creatures looked eerie and sinister and totally out of place. He looked at Anton to get a reaction, but he didn't seem to notice anything. Thanial kept quite.

Thanial and Anton stood by the door, waiting for people to get off; then Anton pulled himself up, right into the face of a young man with brown hair, red and yellow scarf, and a loud Quidditch shirt - a student.

'Anton!'

'Cedric!' Anton yelled. 'What're you doing here?'

'Came to see you! And I needed some supplies. I'm going back with the others later.'

'Very well! I'm off to Hogwarts with a friend. Thanial?' Anton beckoned Thanial over and introduced them.

The Hufflepuff's name was Cedric Diggory. Thanial thought he was hideous. Thanial hated taggy clothes, especially this kind of Quidditch-taggy shirt in exaggerated colors. Cedric had large red-brown eyes that seemed to wobble in his head as if he were cockeyed, or perhaps he was only one of those people who never looked at anyone they were talking to. He was also very tall. Thanial turned away from him, waiting for Anton to finish his conversation. They were holding up the cart - somehow -, Thanial noticed. Anton and Cedric were talking about that damned sport, making a date for some time in January in a town Thanial had never heard of.

'There'll be about fifteen of us at camp by the second,' Cedric said. 'The world championship! A real bang-up like last year! Three weeks, if our money holds out!'

'If we hold out!' Anton said. 'See you tonight, Ced!'

Thanial boarded the cart after Anton. There were two benches, and they were wedged between a greasy-haired, pale man who smelled weird, and a couple of older Slytherin-students who smelled worse. Just as they were leaving the village Anton remembered that Ginny was joining for lunch as usual, because they had thought yesterday that Thanial's moving would cancel the early voyage to Hogwarts. Anton shouted for the cart to stop. The carriage stopped with a lurch that threw everybody' who was sitting off balance, and Anton stood up and called, 'Boy! Boy!'

A little boy on the road came running up to take the two sickles that Anton was holding out to him. Anton asked the boy to notify Ginny, and the boy said, 'Yes, sir!' and flew down the road, Anton sighed as he sat down, and the cart started again. 'I told him to tell Ginny I'd be back tonight, but probably late,' Anton said.

'Good.'

The narrow road moved like a grey ribbon over the grassy highlands, disappearing into the sides of mountains where a sheer drop to one side could mean certain death. I didn't take long before Thanial saw the narrow spires and towers piece over the mountaintop like needles through a cloth. He felt his heart beat faster. How he had dreamed of this day.

The serrated mountains surrounded Hogwarts like great battlements defending their citadel; their rocky bastions reaching out into the air protectively. This great expanse of green enhanced the castles eerieness and beauty as its porticullis made out of hard iron guarded the passage. The school was high upon a hill overlooking the lake, it's many pointed towers giving it the look of an eccentric crown. The walls were a beige stone that glistened in the autumn sun and the roof was grey slate. It was as big as a thousand of the ordinary houses of Hogsmeade and around the castle were the dreaded Quidditch-Pitch and greenhouses for the classes, and around that were steep cliffs and ravines. The castle was more ancient than any bone left in the soil, but Thanial saw that the smooth rock wasn't pitted nor scarred - there were ancient magics protecting the school; lost spells of warding and protection. Thanial understood how fleeting time was, how soon the present would become the past and the important would become the irrelevant. In that hallowed and ancient site, the trees must have seen the centuries blow past in the winds of each season and witnessed the folly of their struggles; Baba Yaga's Invasion, Gellert Grindelwald's Uprising, the Dark Lord Voldemort and the First Wizarding War. Thanial felt as if the trees now witnessed him in the same manner, but then quickly dismissed that thought.

The cart finally spilled them into a big, cluttered courtyard, and they were suddenly surrounded by people with push-carts of fruits, meats, pastry, and spices, and screamed at by house-elves with small blocks and quills. The people made way for Anton.

'The banquet is always something special,' Anton said. 'A real buffet for all desires. Are you excited?'

'Yes.'

Professor McGonagall's office was up a winding staircase too narrow and steep for humans, and Thanial was very thankful Anton was there - getting around was like navigating a maze made for mice and trolls alike. Strings of runed beads hanging in the doorway, an abundant supply of books on every shelf, and a grand window overlooking the highlands, the kind of place you could sit in for hours and read books and not be disturbed. The Deputy Headmistress sat behind the table like she was expecting perfect order. She had a very stern face and Thanial's first thought was that she was not someone to cross. She peered at him over her glasses with a puzzling frown, and Thanial swallowed, feeling nervous for the first time that day.

'I'll wait for you' Anton whispered before slipping back down the staircase, leaving Thanial with a peculiar sense of abandonment.

The witch continued to stare at him in that strange way for a time, but then she finally smiled. 'You must be Barthanial, please sit down.' She gestured to an empty chair and Thanial sat down, eased in mind and with an urge to sigh in relief.

'Thank you, Madame.' He then collected his documentation from the bag and handed it over.

Thanial wondered why she had gawked like that and perhaps if it was a tactic used to make the applicants ill-at-ease in their interviews, but if so, he wore it like a second skin. Before answering each question he paused, head tilted to one side just a smidge, and then he delivered an articulate answer. A few years ago he must have been a young boy, the apple of his mother's eye and giving his father a hard time. His long dark hair was swept in a ponytail and his newspaper-cap was well set. Even in thirty years he'd look much the same save for a few fine smile lines and grey hairs as he approached middle-age. This here persona would appear as a reflection of the papers he'd crafted. Doubtless, Thanial had been waiting a while to step out as his own person, to be the complete boss of himself.

She didn't know it yet, but Thanial would be valedictorian; a scholar above his peers in raw talent without being outwardly arrogant or prideful, thereby securing his spot as favorable by the administration. The rest of the interview was just a formality now - that was the truth and the Deputy Headmistress knew it.

"... an Outstanding in Charms, Outstanding in Transfiguration and Defence Against the Dark Arts,' she read aloud, gave a light laugh and met Thanial's eyes again, 'And a beautiful letter of recommendation sent personally from Rabastan Lestrange.'

'Yes Madame,' Thanial said and smiled kindly, 'He felt it was necessary to lend his support, and I must confess it makes me feel indebted- I will not forget what he's done for me.'

'Of course,' said Professor McGonagall crisply. 'But even without his kind words, you would have been more than qualified. From a family of black sheep, Rabastan turned out alright, I'll agree with you on that. All you have to do is look at his son - I take it you are good friends?'

'Yes. We knew each other from Durmstrang as I understand you've already guessed.'

Her eyes flickered with something. 'I'm glad you have friends here Mister Botts. A place is only as good as one's company.'

She was pretending to be wise. Thanial had been at his most happy by himself - people had seldom done him much good, but he did not have to fake his smile when he thought of Anton. 'Yes. I take it that my application is accepted then?'

She blinked. 'Well of course!' She handed him the papers and he took them, 'Outstanding in all your O.W.L's-' she shook her head, 'I'll bet my wand that Ravenclaw will be the lucky ones.'

Thanial sat back and let the happiness soak right into his bones. He wanted the feeling to still be there when he was old. He looked to the floor and savored the moment, but never released his grip on the seemingly inconsequential piece of parchment with ink in his hand. For the first time in forever his body and mind relaxed. In that moment there were great expectations upon him, a clear future and schedules to meet. He was in, he'd made it, he was a student at Hogwarts. 'Thank you.' Thanial said looking up. 'Anton's invited me to take up lodging at his house in Hogsmeade, and I did accept -'

'I shall speak to the Headmaster,' she interrupted him, 'and see if we can't bend the rules a bit like we did Misses Weasley.' She glanced up at the ceiling, 'Heaven knows, it might calm Molly down a bit. Harassing the board like that, owl after owl for weeks…' The professor then peered over her glasses at him; again with that mysterious expression. 'Pardon me Mister Botts, but you appear familiar to me, there's a resemblance - your eyes,' she paused, 'You are not related to Lady Evans in some way? The Countess?'

Her question was so unexpected, so far from what he could have guessed, he just stared at her tongue-tied as his brain formulated images in vast streams. Thanial coughed. 'Excuse me if I misheard - you mean the Potters? The Chancellor's wife?'

'Yes.'

'No no,' he said honestly and chuckled, 'I've never even met the Count and Countess.'

The professor's eyes fell and for a split-second Thanial thought she looked sad, before her expression closed up.

Thanial bagged his papers, then looked at his shoes before glancing back up to catch her eye. 'I've heard the Girl-Who-Lived is entering her seventh year,' was all he could say.

Then she suddenly smiled. 'You are correct, and now you are as well,' she said. 'Congratulations Mister Botts. We'll consider ourselves pretty lucky to have a student of your caliber entering our school, so please do your best not to let us down on that.'

'Of course Madame.'

* * *

'I'm never going back!' Anton finally snapped as they strolled the corridors.

Thanial had tried to revive the idea one more time out of courtesy towards Mr. Lestrange, but still without any success 'No, I think your mother, her illness -'

'It's got nothing to do with my mother! She's had leukemia for-' Anton slapped a hand on the wall. 'This is what makes me boil about him! HE wants me back! - it's got nothing to do with my mother.'

'I don't know, Anton, I'm just telling you what I -'

'Go back! Go back to London or send a letter if you can find an owl, and tell him wild hippogriffs wouldn't drag me back to him or his company.'

If Thanial had gotten anything at all out of trying again, it was knowing Anton's buttons and which ones not to push. 'I'm sorry, you know I don't disagree with you.'

They walked a bit and Anton made a grunting sound as they hit the entrance hall. 'Gah! I know you mean well Thanial, I just have a lot on my mind as of late.'

Thanial could assume that having an affair would cause some stress, but he wouldn't dare to ask directly; he would wait for Anton to open up himself and come for advice. 'Okay,' Thanial said.

Anton had evidently felt bad about leaving Ginny, so he told Thanial that he would catch the next wagon to Hogsmeade, and come back later with the other students. Thanial pretended like he didn't mind, but Ginny was honestly rousing an irritation and he felt she was getting on his nerves more then she ought to.

Anton had left, so Thanial sighed. The entrance hall was so big you could have fit the whole of the Three Broomsticks in it. The stone walls were lit with red flaming torches, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing him led up to the upper floors. He was just about ready to go exploring when a heavy 'thump' made him turn his head.

He was about twice as tall as an average man, (too big for an ordinary-sized broomstick, Thanial cursed himself for thinking) and three times as wide, with a long mane of shaggy black hair and a beard that covered most of his face.

The man's hands, the size of dustbin lids, dangled as he approached. He lowered himself over Thanial and stared with dark eyes that glinted like black beetles. 'Yer Mister Botts?'

Thanial didn't show his surprise by the warm and airy voice the colossus produced. 'Yes.'

'Very well -' the man coughed. 'Professor McGonagall told me 'bout yer and asked me to deliver these.' His enormous pockets clattered as he searched, and then he pulled forth some long black fabric.

Thanial accepted the bundle and then glanced up. 'Thanks?'

'School robes.' he stated as if that made perfect sense to Thanial - he had already bought his weeks ago.

'I already own -'

'New policies imma 'fraid Mister. The las' attacks are cause for additional protection.'

'Attacks?'

'Well yea', in Russia - these 'ere new robes are better enchanted.'

Now it made sense. 'Alright.' Thanial said and thought quickly; It was well known from the monsters of history that people didn't react to death tolls if they were too high to comprehend. One death could mobilize a community, even a nation. Many deaths, hundreds or thousands, could make a lasting impression to be used for good or bad intentions. Millions of deaths were the ticket, make it bloody enough and people would keep on eating their dinner and pouring their butterbeer. People just weren't wired to cope with that kind of devastation and so they didn't, like a safety shutdown. So the path for the Death Eaters was simple, make sure the death tolls were as high as possible. For those freaks that would be able to react - shut them down with fear of the "enemy." Wicked fun. Worked every time. The only antidote would be to shine a light on one dead child at a time, just one. Let the world see each God's child killed in the name of war, in the name of power and greed - the Daily Prophet had finally done that a few days ago and Thanial had thought it was due time. A young Russian girl of impure blood had been murdered among hundreds of others one night in Sankt Petersburg, and the pictures of her had been extravagantly bloody. It made sense that the school had forethoughts, even if the chance of an attack was minute. Britains defenses would not bend that easily to some masterless terrorists with an outdated ideal.

Thanial looked back up. 'Do you work for the school?'

'Oh yea' - where's me manners!' He extended a hand that Thanial didn't accept out of caution and broken fingers. 'I'm Rubeus Hagrid. Keeper of keys and grounds here at Hogwarts.'

Thanial saw the keys, but just from the corner of his eye. He didn't need to turn his head to know they hang there and it really was the best if he didn't. He could see that the cobber chains mottled dark and green, that was hanging halfway down the pockets, pulled by heavy keys. Stealing was like breathing for Thanial. He didn't need to, of course - from that point, he could have a comfortable life without doing it. But it was like a curse he couldn't break. Every time an opportunity presented itself, he took it, donned the proper facade, and snatched something of little importance to anyone. But every so often, he would go for something bigger - a jewel, an artifact, a collection of books. Now he wanted to steal access to all the ancient fortress had to offer.

'I'm embarrassed to admit this,' Thanial lied scratching his neck, 'But I'm actually lost - I'm looking for the southern courtyard.'

The man chuckled. 'Is' just out there Mister,' he said turning and pointed his big finger at the big double-doors.

Thanial stepped nearer to the giant, checking that no-other was watching him and that the man was totally engrossed in helping him by telling further directions. Thanial passed a hand over the man's pockets and quickly transmuted the heavy loaded cobber chains into a heavier cadmium, deconstructed one end, levitated the keys of one by one using his other hand - right down into his bag. No obvious sounds, but Thanial's bag was now much heavier. 'Thank you Rubeus, would you mind accompanying me out?' he asked getting up on his side.

The Groundskeeper followed Thanial out, and actually sounded more than willing to show him the whole castle had he asked. Thanial felt some guilt when Hagrid left him, having used the man's kind and naive nature for his own good - he decided to make copies of the keys and return the originals later. Erasing the trace.

Thanial started to stroll down one of the outer passageways feeling his bag without looking down. There were many keys, in different sizes and best of all - they were his. He made as if to yawn, looking around whilst stretching. 'How else am I going to reach my potential,' he thought to himself, granting belated permission for what he had done. He had already mentally used them to reach forbidden sections of the library past bedtime, finding buried secrets of wandless magic. The bag's strap was knawing into his shoulder, so he sat down and transfigured the keys into papers - which usually took him more time. He hadn't practiced transfiguration as much as transmutation for a simple reason: Transfigurations were not permanent, whereas transmutations were. Both disciplines had their upsides and downsides though; you could transfigure anything into anything you wanted, but it couldn't stay permanent in the new form - otherwise it would break the law of Equivalent Exchange; No one can gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That was Alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange. Transfigurations were like balloons that would slowly deflate to their original state. Alchemical transmutation was the way to bend the elements; a scientific technique of understanding the structure of matter, decomposing it, and then reconstructing it. If performed skillfully, it could even be possible to create gold out of lead. However, as it was a science, there were some natural principles in place. Only one thing could be created from something else of a certain mass. This was the Principle of Equivalent Exchange. Thanial then rose and walked away, outwardly nonchalant but internally impatient to discover what he had "won" and smiling because stealing was his own way of breaking the law of Equivalent Exchange.

* * *

The staircases were moving, enchanted of course, and they turned in a way that reminded Thanial of Nicolas Flamel's moving laboratory - the one that roamed the countryside on four legs, so Flamel could have his privacy. Thanial turned to see from where Anton would come, knowing that it was too early. The portraits moved with him, a procession of colors yet with only faded faces regardless of skin tone - their eyes followed him. He wondered if they knew that he had stolen, what information they had from the labyrinth that Hogwarts was. Then he turned to see a ghost flying around, gaunt face, silvery white like the frost on an early winter's morning. Thanial heard the drone of a hundred footsteps and turned again, and there Anton was, walking among all the other students with that casual gait, face just the way he loved it - with the beaming smile he gave his friends, a natural smile, relaxed, perfect.

* * *

 **AN:** I'm obviously a fan of FMA, and I am very fascinated by its magic-system. I'll be using some of those ideas, as well as my own research in Paracelcus and Flamels' works and biographies, the speculative theories surrounding the Hermetic Principles, and mythology. Disclaimer: I do not own Full Metal Alchemist's magic-system or terminology.


	7. The Sorting

Like any good actor he already knew his lines. Fooling the administration was going to be a cinch. The Headmaster might be a professional at legilimency, but he was a pro at delivering a flawless performance - if push comes to shove he would just avoid eye-contact. Thanial's name was called by Professor McGonagall and he moved away from the new first-year students, every flicker of the eyes and facial expression of natural excitement booked in his brain for later. He adjusted the watch over his hand, now this was an act he was going to enjoy.

He would describe himself as a prospective alchemist to anyone who'd listen. In reality he'd only been keeping files for the('one and only') Nicolas Flamel, but that he would keep a secret; it could ruin his Durmstrang-alibi if it got out. The old alchemist had probably forgotten all about him, but Thanial knew Flamel had done work with Albus Dumbledore in the past - they might still be talking and he would have to consider that. He was 16 now and had deciphered many of Flamel's notes, just enough to keep himself from scholarly boredom. He still held out for the dream, that one day his research would pay off. One day he'd be an alchemist capable of creating Prima Materia; the philosopher's stone. Whatever that in truth may be.

As Thanial stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.

'He's Handsome.'

'Who is he?'

'Draco said he's from Durmstrang'

The last thing Thanial saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was Anton and Ginny craning to get a good look at him, with two sets of 'thumbs up'. Next second he was looking at the black inside of the hat. He waited.

At first it was nothing but a deeper moaning to the caustic beating of his own heart. The sound wound itself around his ears and began to change, like a terrible lullaby. Then from that background of sound that ebbed and flowed just like the rhythm of his heart, came words. Thanial froze, straining against the terrible sounds. It was no language he knew, and was like iron-nails dragged over a rock. It rose and fell, never once making the words audible. The sounds were accelerating. He wanted them to slow so he could breathe but they didn't. Thanial's breaths started to come in small gasps and he felt like he would black out. His heart was hammering inside his chest like it belonged to a rabbit running for its skin. He felt sick. He wanted to get the hat off but he was locked in place, frozen, with no control.

'SLYTHERIN!'

Thanial heard the hat shout the word to the whole hall and he felt as if he had escaped hell. He took off the hat, tried to mask his relief, but walked shakily toward the Slytherin table. He was so relieved to have been chosen and not spontaneously combusted, he hardly noticed that most of the girls were cheering him on. The son of Lucius Malfoy, Draco if he remembered correctly, got up and shook his hand, while some girls further down squealed, 'We got him! We got him!' Thanial sat down opposite the gaunt-faced ghost he'd seen earlier. The ghost patted his arm, giving Thanial the sudden, horrible feeling he'd just plunged it into a bucket of ice-cold water. The night had not gone accordingly to plan, that was the truth, and Thanial masked his annoyance as he continued to greet politely all around. What was up with that bloody hat? Understanding magical artifacts was a specialty of his!

He could see the High Table properly now. At the end nearest him sat the greasy-haired smelly fellow from the wagon, who caught his eye and gave him a small nod. Thanial nodded back. And there, in the center of the High Table, in a large gold chair, sat Albus Dumbledore. Thanial recognized him at once from all the newspapers and the public speeches. Dumbledore's silver hair was the only thing in the whole hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts. Thanial spotted Professor Black, too, the famous young Auror that was very close to the Potters. He was looking very handsome in a large leather coat. Then there was the Groundkeeper, Hagrid, by the other end - it was hard to tell for the bushy black beard, but he seemed nervous. There was no question about it; Thanial needed to return the keys soon.

Voices babbled happily like a mountain river. The Slytherins had a weird type of banter, not only were crude insults taken as hard warming compliments but the unthinkable topics they talked would seem weird to outsiders that weren't inside their precious circle of rich-kids with twisted social conventions. 'Is that your sister? No way, I thought only ugliness ran through your family?' Their ridicule was boundless and they insulted each other all through the feast; which surprisingly hadn't been up to par with the Lestrange's table - he still enjoyed it.

As Thanial helped himself to some chocolate-covered grapes, the talk turned to their birthcrafts. Thanial didn't know whether he preferred the latter, and really had an urge to join Anton and the Hufflepuffs.

'I can make heat with me hands,' said a newly sorted first-year. 'Me dad's an Elementalist. Quite hard to control - burned me cat's whiskers off. Bit of a nasty shock for him.'

The others laughed.

'What about you, Barthanial?' asked Draco.

'Thanial, please', Thanial said, 'Nothing as fancy as pyrokinesis,' he addressed the first-year with a smile, 'Just a telekinetic.'

An older Slytherin sneered. 'Not really a birthcraft at all if you think 'bout it.'

'No,' Thanial said, still smiling, 'Everyone can train that to some extent.'

'Slytherin has 'bout ten of those,' the boy with the hideous smile was purposely trying to rile Thanial up - how futile.

'Yours nothing to brag about Blaise -' Draco said and the chatter around them faded until almost everyone was still. 'Boiling Blaise...'

Blaise slowly started to chuckle. The laughing was like ripples in a still pond after a stone has been thrown in. It radiated outwards along the packed table of Slytherins who had up until that moment been quietly awaiting a punchline. Now they too began to titter and soon the ripples of laughter became great waves of hilarity.

'Is' so true!' Blaise said teary-eyed, 'Is' so specific only being able to boil things - I would swap for your firefingers any day little man!'

Thanial, who was starting to feel mildly annoyed, looked up at the High Table again. Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet, but his hand trembled so wine spilled right and left. Professor McGonagall was talking to the Headmaster. Professor Black was talking to a student with long auburn hair, a pale complexion, and a pair of glasses. Thanial had seen her before somewhere and felt stupid when it had taken him a moment before identifying the face. It was the-girl-who-lived. Jane Potter in the flesh.

'Admiring saintess Potter?'

Thanial turned to Draco, 'What?'

'Oh it's understandable,' Blaise interjected, 'She's our most beloved school mascot, a true symbol of morality, a heroine beyond comparison -'

'Sarcasm doesn't suit you Blaise,' said Draco.

'I'll have to agree,' Thanial said, feeling he needed to go along, 'I was merely having a look. Never seen her in person.'

Blaise closed his eyes. 'Envious...'

At last, the desserts too disappeared, and the Headmaster got to his feet. The hall fell silent.

'Ahem - welcome to another year at Hogwarts! Just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered, a few start-of-term notices to give you,' said Dumbledore, the candlelight shimmering on his beard. 'and as one of them is very serious, I think it best to get it out of the way...'

Dumbledore cleared his throat and continued, 'As you will all be aware after being handed new robes, our school is presently preparing for the worst. Though we're highly unlikely to see an attack, we are still hosting some outstanding Aurors, who have come here from the Ministry of Magic.'

He paused, and Thanial remembered what the Daily Prophet had said about Dumbledore working closely with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Security. Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, extremely wealthy, beyond powerful in magicks, and a bit mad. What an intimidating coalition of talents.

'They are stationed at every entrance to the inner grounds,' Dumbledore continued, 'and while they are with us, I must make it plain that nobody should feel frightened. The Aurors are officers of the highest quality and will protect all of us in this here school - even how unlikely an attack is,' he added blandly, and Thanial felt a habitual need to check the parameters for Bluecloaks. Dumbledore paused again; he looked very seriously around the hall, and nobody moved or made a sound. 'On a happier note,' he continued, 'I am pleased to welcome one new teacher to our ranks this year.'

'Professor Black, who has kindly consented to fill the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.'

Thanial was taken aback by the applause. Most of the girls clapped hard, and especially the Gryffindors, Jane Potter among them. There was some scattered, rather unenthusiastic applause from the Slytherins. Professor Black looked particularly pleased, puffing out his chest ironically next to all the other teachers.

'Look at Severus!' Draco hissed in Thanial's ear.

Severus Snape, their Head of House, was staring along the staff table at Professor Black. Draco whispered again that it was common knowledge that Severus wanted the Defense Against the Dark Arts job, but even Thanial, who didn't know Severus, was startled at the expression twisting his thin, sallow face. It was beyond anger: it was loathing. Thanial knew that expression only too well; it was the look Thanial wore in private every time he'd failed himself.

'First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well.' Dumbledore's twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Gryffindor table.

'I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.'

'Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch.' Thanial felt goosebumps shoot up along his backside.

Dumbledore cleared his throat again; the whole Hall had erupted in a buzz of conversation by the mere mention of Quidditch. The headmaster waited a few seconds to ensure that the silence was absolute before continuing.

'Now, as everybody in this Hall knows, Lord Voldemort's followers are once more at large and gaining in strength.'

The silence seemed to tauten and strain as Dumbledore spoke the Dark Lord's name. Thanial looked at Draco. Draco was not watching Dumbledore, but making his fork hover in midair with his wand, as though he found the headmaster's words unworthy of his attention.

'I cannot emphasize strongly enough how dangerous the present situation is, and how much care each of us at Hogwarts must take to ensure that we remain safe. The Aurors and your robes are not all; The castle's magical fortifications have been strengthened over the summer, we are protected in new and more powerful ways, but we must still guard scrupulously against carelessness on the part of any student or member of staff. I urge you, therefore, to abide by any security restrictions that your teachers might impose upon you, however irksome you might find them - in particular, the rule that you are not to be out of bed after hours. I implore you, should you notice anything strange or suspicious within or outside the castle, to report it to an Auror or a member of staff immediately. I trust you to conduct yourselves, always, with the utmost regard for your own and others' safety.'

Dumbledore's blue eyes swept over the students before he smiled once more.

'But now, your beds await, as warm and comfortable as you could possibly wish, and I know that your top priority is to be wellrested for your lessons tomorrow. Let us therefore say good night. Pip pip!'

* * *

The rise of the Dark Lord's followers was old news, and most students went unfazed by Dumbledore's words. Anton had spent most of the wagon-ride talking about Cedric Diggory, and Thanial had found it as uninteresting as Cedric's face. Cedric was the son of a British ministry-man, working in Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and as a dragon tamer - self-styled, Thanial gathered, because he had tamed only one dragon, and nobody had observed it. Cedric had a house in Aberdeen, and Anton had stayed with him several weeks during holidays.

'This is what I like,' Anton said expansively in the wagon, 'sitting and watching the mountains pass by. It does something to your outlook on life. The founders made a great pick for the school wouldn't you say?'

Thanial nodded. He had heard it before. He was waiting for something profound and original from Anton. Anton was handsome. He looked unusual with his long, finely cut face, his quick, intelligent eyes, the proud way he carried himself regardless of what he was wearing. He was wearing broken-down boots and rather soiled school-robes now, but he sat there as if he owned the lands, chatting with Ginny as she awoke pouty from a nap she'd taken by his side.

'Hey!' he called to a Scottish boy who was passing by.

'Oi, Anton!'

'He get's Aggie all our fresh meats and vegetables,' Anton explained to Thanial.

The strange hybrid-horses stopped as the reached Hogsmeade, and Ginny went ahead down to the house. A well-dressed Scotsman greeted Anton with a warm handshake and invited them to a drink at the Hog's Head. They sat down at a table and Thanial listened to their conversation in a Gaelic accent, making out a word here and there. Thanial was annoyed he didn't have a sharper ear and began to feel tired.

'Want to go to Edinburgh?' Anton asked him suddenly.

'Sure,' Thanial said. 'Now?' He stood up, reaching for sickle to pay the little tabs that the waiter had stuck under their coffee cups.

The Scotsman had a long grey Cadillac equipped with invisibility-blinds, a runed frame for flying, and a blaring radio that he and Anton seemed content to shout over. They reached the outskirts of Edinburgh in about two hours. Thanial sat up as they flew along the coast, especially for his benefit, the Scotsman told Thanial, because Thanial had not seen it from the air before. The wind was turbulent. These were the unforgiving weathers of Scottland, the Scotsman said. The cities looked like intricate webs of lights desolate in the twilight, like spiderwebs, Thanial thought, with just a few cars moving here and there through the blackness. The Scotsman dropped them in the middle of an alleyway in Edinburgh and said an abrupt good-bye.

'He's in a hurry,' Anton said. 'Got to see his girl friend and get away before the husband comes home at eleven. There's the music hall I was looking for. Come on.!

They bought tickets for the music-hall show that evening. There was still an hour before the performance, and they went to Victoria Street, took a sidewalk table at one of the cafes, and ordered beers. Anton didn't know anybody in Edinburgh, Thanial noticed, or at least none who passed by, and they watched hundreds of Scottish pass by their table. Thanial got very little out of the music-hall show, but he tried his very best. Anton proposed leaving before the show was over. Then they caught a taxi and drove around the city, past fountain after fountain, through the Forum and around the Castle. The moon had come out. Thanial was still a little sleepy, but the sleepiness underlaid with excitement at being in Edinburgh for the first time, put him into a receptive, mellow mood. They sat slumped in the taxi, each with an arm propped on a windowsill, and it seemed to Thanial that he was looking in a mirror when he looked at Anton's arm and his propped hand beside him. They were the same height, and very much the same weight, Anton perhaps a bit heavier, and they wore the same size bathrobe, socks, and probably robe.

Anton even said, 'Thank you, Mr. Lestrange,' when Thanial paid the taxi driver. Thanial felt a little weird.

They were in even finer mood by one in the morning, after a bottle and a half of wine between them at a late night snack. They walked with their arms around each other's shoulders, singing, and around a dark corner they somehow bumped into a girl and knocked her down. They lifted her up, apologizing, and offered to escort her home. She protested, they insisted, one on either side of her. She had to catch a certain trolley, she said. Anton wouldn't hear of it. Anton got another taxi. Anton and Thanial sat very properly on the jump seats with their arms folded like a couple of footmen, and Anton talked to her and made her laugh. Thanial could understand nearly everything Anton said. They helped the girl out in a little and she said, 'Thenk ye!' and shook hands with both of them, then vanished into an absolutely black doorway.

'Did you hear that?' Anton said. 'She said we were the nicest pair of posh boys she'd ever met!'

'You know what most crummy posh-boys would do in a case like that - rape her,' Thanial said.

'Now where are we?' Anton asked, turning completely around.

Neither had the slightest idea where they were. They walked for several blocks without finding a landmark or a familiar street name. They urinated against a dark wall, then drifted on.

'When the dawn comes up, we can see where we are,' Anton said cheerfully. He looked at his watch. 'S only a couple of more hours.'

'Fine.'

'It's worth it to see a nice girl home, isn't it?' Anton asked, staggering a little.

'Sure it is. I like girls,' Thanial said protestingly. 'But it's just as well Ginny isn't here tonight. We never could have seen that girl home with Ginny with us.'

'Oh, I don't know,' Anton said thoughtfully, looking down at his weaving feet. 'Ginny isn't -'

'I only mean, if Ginny was here, we'd be worried about getting enough sleep. We'd be in our damned beds, probably. We wouldn't be seeing half of Edinburgh.'

'That's right!' Anton swung an arm around his shoulder.

Anton shook his shoulder, roughly. Thanial tried to roll out from under it and grab his hand, 'Anto-on!' Thanial opened his eyes and looked into the face of a policeman.

Thanial sat up. He was in a park. It was dawn. Anton was sitting on the grass beside him, talking very calmly to the policeman. Thanial felt for the long lump of his fake wand. It was still in his pocket.

'What are ye lads doin'!' the policeman hurled at them again, and again Anton launched into his calm explanation.

Thanial knew exactly what Anton was saying. He was saying that they were tourists, and they had been dressed like that because of a party and they had only gone out for a little walk to look at the stars. Thanial had an impulse to laugh. He stood up and staggered, dusting his clothing. Anton was up, too, and they began to walk away, though the policeman was still yelling at them. Anton said something back to him in a courteous, explanatory tone and then followed that with a confundus charm. At least the policeman was not following them.

'We do look pretty cruddy,' Anton said.

Thanial nodded. There was a long rip in his trouser knee where he had probably fallen. Their clothes were crumpled and grass-stained and filthy with dust and sweat, but now they were shivering with cold. They went into the first cafe they came to and had caffe latte and sweet rolls, then several Scottish brandies that tasted awful but warmed them. Then they began to laugh. They were still drunk.

Anton pulled forth an expensive-looking stone, a Portkey. By seven o'clock they were in Hogsmeade, with some time to spare before catching the cart for Hogwarts. It was wonderful to think of going back to Edinburgh when they were more presentably dressed and seeing all the wizard-districts they had missed, and it was wonderful to think of lying in bed, under the sheets. But they never got to the beds. They had showers at Anton's house, then took a pepperup-potion each before Ginny met them by the door. Ginny was annoyed because Anton hadn't said anything about spending the night in Edinburgh.

'Not that I minded your spending the night, but I thought you were out hunting perhaps, or in Glasgow and anything can happen in Glasgow.'

'Oh-h,' Anton drawled with a glance at Thanial. He was hiding the empty vials.

Thanial kept his mouth mysteriously shut. He wasn't going to tell Ginny anything they had done. Let her imagine what she pleased. Anton had made it evident that they had had a very good time. Thanial noticed that she looked Anton over with disapproval of his soon-to-pass hangover, his unshaven face, and the dark circles under his eyes. There was something in Ginny's eyes when she was very serious that made her look wise and old in spite of the school-robes she wore and her windblown hair and her general air of a Girl Scout. She had the look of a mother or an older sister now - the old feminine disapproval of the destructive play of little boys and men. La dee da! Or was it jealousy? She seemed to know that Anton had formed a closer bond with him in twenty-four hours, just because he was another man than she could ever have with Anton, whether he loved her or not, and he didn't. After a few moments she loosened up, however, and the look went out of her eyes. Anton left him with Ginny in the wagon - he would rather take his broom. Thanial asked her about her studying. It was mostly potions and transfiguration, she said, that was where she was most behind. She told him she was from Devon and showed him a picture, which she carried in her wallet, of her family's house. It looked as though it had once been a large stone pigpen, but extra rooms had been added here and there until it was several stories high, but it was home, Ginny said with a smile. She pronounced the adjective 'Clabbered', which amused Thanial, because that was the word she used to describe people who were drunk, and just a few minutes before she had said to Anton, 'You look absolutely clabbered!' her speech, Thanial thought, was abominable, both her choice of words and her pronunciation. He tried to be especially pleasant to her. He felt he could afford to be. When they arrived he walked with her to the Great Hall, and they said a friendly good-bye to each other, but neither said anything about their all getting together later that afternoon or tomorrow. There was no doubt about it, Ginny was a little angry with Anton.


	8. The Etherium

The banter sounded all around as the students arrived from breakfast, hustling and bustling down the corridors. Friends were greeting each other with a hug or a playful punch while first-years stood, looking scared. The seniors stood, tall and proud - confidence born of experience. Soon small chimes rang and everybody ran except an occasional slowcoach or chatterbox. Everybody got in except one and all was quiet; Thanial smiled to himself. 'And the school year begins,' he thought before letting the smile fall and stepping in to join the others.

Thanial sat on the edge of his chair, this was Transfiguration, his chance to shine. The other Slytherins seemed to come alive in Potions-class, amongst the cauldrons and finely chopped ingredients, but for him the sight of the laboratory was the heaven he craved. Potions were amazing, potionéering was beautiful, but not when performed by his hand. By his hand it was like a three-year-old with a broken arm was given a stirring rod and told to have fun. He knew the theory quite well, but had never done any practical brewing - nobody could ever know that of course, and besides the broom-riding, he would have practice six years worth of potionéering before really participating, or find another way to follow the syllabus. Professor McGonagall was beaming at the front of the class, and he fought not to reflect it back, grinning at teachers wasn't the way.

'Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration,' said Professor McGonagall, flicking her wand to make the words appear on the chalkboard. 'Gamp's Law is a law governing the magical world. There are five Principal Exceptions to Gamp's Law, which is?' She browsed the room and found Thanial. She smiled. He returned it.

'The first exception is food Professor.' Thanial said, 'It's impossible to make food edible out of something inedible. You can Summon it if you know where it is, you can transform it, or you can increase the quantity if you've already got some, but you can't transfigure food and it could be very dangerous if consumed.' She nodded, Thanial took a breath and continued. 'The second exception is money - that's self-explanatory. The third is intentional curse damage. Some dark curses obstruct healing and other treatments. The fourth -' Thanial swallowed, 'is necromancy -'

'If you could bring a human back from the dead, there wouldn't be any need for infiri,' a Ravenclaw girl interrupted.

Professor McGonagall shot her a glance.

'It's what the Deatheaters do,' the girl continued unfazed. 'Infiri, that's what the Prophet says... animated bodies that are still dead. Why not bring them all the way back then?'

'Unless you wanted them to be extra scary.' a boy behind her added, following it with a bad impression of a zombie.

'That's enough!' Professor McGonagall said.

'The fifth exception professor...' Thanial said and the room turned to silence again, '... the fifth is an extension of the fourth rule. You can't transfigure a consciousness, a life - whether it be transfiguring yourself into a complete copy of the Headmaster with all his talents intact, make a clone of yourself or simply create true life from something inanimate.' Thanial reckoned that if you could transfigure a human being back from the dead, there'd be no need for the Philosopher's Stone.

'Excellent answer Mister Botts - five points to Slytherin.'

Thanial had not been worrying about his fake wand as much as preparing; Incantations(mental, verbal or otherwise) was needed when using wands, so he had never exercised pronouncing incantations nor wand-movements. He had now used a few weeks fumbling with the stick to a point where he was comfortable and was certain he wouldn't draw attention to himself - that would have to good enough. It was an old saying that the wand was an extension of the wizard, but in truth that wasn't correct at all. The wand was made up of 3 components: The first was the wood, which connected the wielder to the earth; grounding him, like the roots of a tree, branching deep below and making it possible to harness the energy of the planet's tectonic activity. The second component was the core, which connected the wielder to the Etherium; a higher dimension of pure magic - another plane made up of words with immense power, a language that held the ability to make your commands come true. The last component was the bond formed with the wielder; a bond that actually made the wand somewhat an extension of oneself, making it like another limb taking instructions from the brain. Energy, power and will. The big confusion about it all was that nobody really understood the Etherium - it was a rather speculative thesis. Spellcrafting was often done with a certain risk because nobody could speak the Etherial language, and great masters of spellcrafting like Herpo the Foul and Merwyn the Malicious was said to have gotten the incantations from their dreams - and thus it still was for many. Though a great grip on Latin and Greek had been a common trait amongst the great writers of incantations. Wandless magic was possible because every wizard possessed an enate birthcraft connecting him to the Etherium, but Thanial often wondered where he drew his energy from, if not the earth, and even that hypothesis was far out to start with. Wizarding kind really didn't know the answer to much of anything.

* * *

For three or four days they saw very little of Ginny except down in the living room, and she was noticeably cooler towards both of them in the living room. She smiled and talked just as much or maybe more, but there was an element of politeness now, which made for the coolness. Thanial noticed that Anton was concerned, though not concerned enough to talk to Ginny alone, apparently, because he hadn't seen her alone since Thanial had moved into the house. Thanial had been with Anton every moment after classes.

Thanial explored the casual elegance of Anton's bedroom - the Louis Vuitton chest, the closet's open door spilling out shirts, ties. On the dressing table there was toiletries, cufflinks scattered, a silk tie. Thanial picked up the tie and walked towards the open window below which was the balcony. Ginny and Anton were chatting and shreds of conversation flew up to him.

'It'll just be for a little while.' Anton said, 'He can be... he makes me laugh.'

'Okay, honey.'

'You'd say if you mind?'

'No, I like him. You know I don't care if he's a Slytherin,' Ginny said. Thanial thought she sounded genuine.

'Ginny, you like everybody.'

'I don't like you.'

Anton laughed. 'Then I'll go live in the dorms and you can move in with Thanial.'

Above them, Thanial repeated the phrases, carefully, testing the cadences, 'No, I like him. You know I don't care if he's a Slytherin. Ginny, you like everybody,' until he was as accurate as a taperecorder.

Finally Thanial, to show that he was not obtuse about Ginny, mentioned to Anton that he thought she was acting strangely.

'Oh, she has moods,' Anton said. 'Maybe she's studying well. She doesn't like to see people when she's in a streak.'

The Anton-Ginny relationship was evidently just what he had supposed it to be at first, Thanial thought. Ginny was much fonder of Anton than Anton was of her.

Thanial, at any rate, kept Anton amused. He had lots of funny stories to tell Anton about people he knew in London, some of them true, some of them made up. They went up to fly every afternoon. There was no mention of any date when Thanial might be leaving. Obviously Anton was enjoying his company. Thanial kept out of Anton's way when Anton wanted to craft brooms, and he was always ready to drop whatever he was doing and go with Anton for a walk or a fly or simply sit and talk. Anton also seemed pleased that Thanial was taking his flying seriously. Thanial spent a couple of hours a day with his broom and schoolbooks - actually managing to do some of the homework whilst flying, and the feeling of acrophobia was slowly diminishing.

Thanial wrote to Mr. Lestrange that he was staying with Anton now for a time, and said that Anton had mentioned coming home for a while in the winter, and that probably he could by that time persuade him to stay longer. Thanial also said that when his money gave out he intended to try to get himself a part-time job, perhaps at one of the shops in the village, a casual statement that served the double purpose of reminding Mr. Lestrange that forty-five galleons could run out, and also that he was a young man ready and willing to work for a living. Thanial wanted to convey the same good impression to Anton, so he gave Anton the letter to read before he sealed it.

Another week went by, of ideally pleasant weather, ideally lazy days in which Thanial's greatest physical exertion was climbing the stone steps and flying every afternoon and his greatest mental effort trying to mask ineptitude in potions, the Slytherin-boy, Draco, whom Thanial had bonded with in class, and had a very good grasp of potionéering, had agreed to partner up with him. Observing him close in class really speeded the process along.

The Groundkeeper Hagrid he'd seen once or twice and he had looked rather down - Thanial figured he hadn't said anything to anyone about the keys and that perfect. He used a free-period in between Charms and Arithmancy to transmute all twenty-two copies of the keys(out of sight from the observant eyes of the paintings), and leave the original keys inside an old knight armor before going home - Hagrid did look better the next day and Thanial guessed it was because of an Accio-spell suddenly working as it should. Now that had been dealt with, but he would wait a bit before going exploring the nooks and crannies of the School - you could never be too careful.

Sometimes Anton would come home way past bedtime, and in a very strange mood where he wasn't sociable at all. It made Thanial wonder about the Scottish girl he'd seen with Anton that one time, and by mere coincidence, he'd seen her working a small stand in Hogsmeade. Something was up between them, he was sure, but hoped he was wrong.

They flew up into the highlands one day on Anton's brooms. The hills was just far enough away not to be visible from Hogsmeade. Thanial was finally filled with anticipation, but Anton was in one of his preoccupied moods and refused to be enthusiastic about anything. He had argued with Ginny before they had taken off. Anton didn't even want to take a walk through the wonderful-looking grasslands that went off in every direction. They sat on a blanket on the green and drank a couple of whiskeys, and then Anton wanted to start home before it became dark, though Thanial would have willingly transmuted a tent if Anton had agreed to stay overnight. Thanial supposed they would come again sometime, so he wrote that day off and tried to forget it.

An owl came from Mr. Lestrange, which had crossed Thanial's letter, in which Mr. Lestrange reiterated his arguments for Anton's coming home, wished Thanial success, and asked for a prompt reply as to his results. Once more Thanial dutifully took up the quill and replied. Mr. Lestrange's letter had been in such a shockingly businesslike tone - really as if he had been checking on a shipment of broom parts, Thanial thought - that he found it very easy to reply in the same style. Thanial was a little high when he wrote the letter, because it was just after dinner and they were always slightly high on wine just after dinner, a delicious sensation that could be corrected at once with a couple of espressos; and a short walk, or prolonged with another glass of wine, sipped as they went about their leisurely afternoon routine. Thanial amused himself by injecting a faint hope in this letter. He wrote in Mr. Lestrange's own style: ... If I am not mistaken, Antonio is wavering in his decision to spend another winter here. As I promised you, I shall do everything in my power to dissuade him from spending another winter here, and in time - though it may be as long as Christmas - I may be able to get him to stay in London when he travels home.

Thanial had to smile as he wrote it, because he and Anton were talking of flying around the Irish islands this winter, and Anton had given up the idea of traveling home even for a few days, unless his mother should be really seriously ill by then. They had talked also of spending January and February, Hogsmeade's worst months, in Belgium and ordering Portkeys so they could attend school as well. And Ginny would not be going with them, Thanial was sure. Both he and Anton excluded her from their travel plans whenever they discussed them, though Anton had made the mistake of dropping to her that they might be taking a winter voyage somewhere. Anton was so damned open about everything!

And now, though Thanial knew Anton was still firm about their going alone, Anton was being more than usually attentive to Ginny, just because he realized that she would be lonely here by herself, and that it was essentially unkind of them not to ask her along. Anton and Thanial both tried to cover it up by impressing on her that they would be traveling in the cheapest and worst possible way around Ireland, only on brooms, sleeping with peasants in farms, in tents, no way for a girl to travel. But Ginny still looked dejected, and Anton still tried to make it up by asking her often to his room after dinner. Anton took Ginny's hand sometimes as they walked down from the Quidditch-field, though Ginny didn't always let him keep it. Sometimes she extricated her hand after a few seconds in a way that looked to Thanial as if she were dying for her hand to be held.

And when they asked her to go along with them to Fort William, she refused.

'I think I'll stay home. You boys enjoy yourselves,' she said with an effort at a cheerful smile.

'Well, if she won't, she won't,' Thanial said to Anton, and drifted tactfully into the house so that she and Anton could talk alone on the balcony if they wanted to.

Thanial sat on the broad window-sill in Anton's studio and looked out at the mountains, his white arms folded on his chest. He loved to look out at the green and think of himself and Anton flying where they pleased. Ireland, Belgium, France, Italy... By the time his money ran out and he'd gotten his degree, Thanial thought, Anton would probably be so fond of him and so used to him that he would take it for granted they would go on living together. He and Anton could easily live on Anton's twenty galleon a month income. From the balcony he could hear a pleading tone in Anton's voice, and Ginny's monosyllabic answers. Then he heard the gate clang. Ginny had left. It was weekend and she had been going to stay for lunch. Thanial shoved himself off the window-sill and went out to Anton on the balcony.

'Was she angry about something?' Thanial asked.

'No. She feels kind of left out, I suppose.'

'We certainly tried to include her.'

'It isn't just this.' Anton was walking slowly up and down the balcony. 'Now she says she doesn't even want to go to the world championship with me.'

'Oh, she'll probably come around about the championship before January.'

'I doubt it,' Anton said.

Thanial supposed it was because he was going to the championship, too. Anton had asked him last week. Cedric Diggory had taken a few days of school: he had had to go to Aberdeen suddenly, Ginny had told them. But Anton had said he would write Cedric that he was bringing a friend along. 'Do you want me to leave, Anton?' Thanial asked, sure that Anton didn't want him to leave. 'I feel I'm intruding on you and Ginny.'

'Of course not! Intruding on what?'

'Well, from her point of view.'

'No. It's just that I owe her something. And I haven't been particularly nice to her lately. We haven't.'

Thanial knew he meant that he and Ginny had kept each other company over the long, dreary last winter, when they had been the only southerners in the village, and that he shouldn't neglect her now because somebody else was here. 'Suppose I talk to her about going to the championship,' Thanial suggested.

'Then she surely won't go,' Anton said tersely and went into the house.

Thanial heard him telling Aggie to hold the lunch because he wasn't ready to eat yet. Even in Gaelic Thanial could hear that Anton said he wasn't ready for lunch, in the master-of-the-house tone. Anton came out on the balcony, sheltering his wand as he tried to light his cigarette. Anton had a beautiful silver wand, but his incendio didn't work well in the slightest breeze. Thanial finally produced his ugly, brown wand, as ugly and efficient as a piece of Auror equipment, willed a flame and lighted it for him. Thanial checked himself from proposing a drink: it wasn't his house, though as it happened he had bought the three bottles of Doxy-rum that now stood in the kitchen.

'It's after two,' Thanial said. 'Want to take a little walk and go by the post office?' Sometimes Jamie opened the Public Owls & Post at two-thirty, sometimes not until four, they could never tell.

They walked down the street in silence. What had Ginny said about him, Thanial wondered. The sudden weight of guilt made sweat come out on Thanial's forehead, an amorphous yet very strong sense of guilt, as if Ginny had told Anton specifically that he had stolen something or had done some other shameful thing. Anton wouldn't be acting like this only because Ginny had behaved coolly, Thanial thought. Anton walked in his slouching, downhill gait that made his bony knees jut out in front of him, a gait that Thanial had unconsciously adopted, too. But now Anton's chin was sunk down on his chest and his hands were rammed into the pockets of his pants. He came out of silence only to greet Jamie and thank him for his letter. Thanial had no mail. Anton's letter was from a London bank, a form slip on which Thanial saw typewritten in a blank space: 20 Galleons. Anton pushed the slip carelessly into a pocket and dropped the envelope into a wastebucket. The monthly announcement that Anton's money had arrived in Hogsmeade, Thanial supposed. Anton had said that his trust company sent his money to a Hogsmeade bank. They walked on down the hill, and Thanial assumed that they would walk up the main street to where it curved around a hill on the other side of the village, as they had done before, but Anton stopped at the steps that led up to the small Quidditch area.

'I think I'll go up to see Ginny,' Anton said. 'I won't be long, but there's no use in your waiting.'

'All right,' Thanial said, feeling suddenly desolate. He watched Anton climb a little way up the steep steps cut into the cliff, then he turned abruptly and started back towards the house.

About half-way up the hill he stopped with an impulse to go down to Hog's Head for a drink (but Hog's butterbeer was terrible), and with another impulse to go up to the Quidditch field, and, on a pretence of apologising to Ginny, vent his anger by surprising them and annoying them. He suddenly felt that Anton was embracing her, or at least touching her, at this minute, and partly he wanted to see it, and partly he loathed the idea of seeing it. He turned and walked back to the steps. He ascended the steps carefully, though the pitch was so far above they could not possibly have heard it, then ran up the steps two at a time. He slowed as he climbed the last flight of steps. He would say, 'Look here, Ginny, I'm sorry if I've been causing the strain around here. We asked you to go today, and we mean it. I mean it.'

Thanial stopped as the grassy meadow came into view: Anton's arm was around her waist. Anton was kissing her, little pecks on her cheek, smiling at her. They were only about fifteen feet from him, but the place was shadowed by some rocks compared to the bright sunlight he stood in, and he had to strain to see. Now Ginny's face was tipped straight up to Anton's, as if she were fairly lost in ecstasy, and what disgusted Thanial was that he knew Anton didn't mean it, that Anton was only using this cheap obvious, easy way to hold on to her friendship. What disgusted him was the big bulge of her behind in the peasant dress below Anton's arm that circled her waist. And Anton -! Thanial really wouldn't have believed it possible of Anton!

Thanial turned away and ran down the steps, wanting to scream. He flung his hand downwards in the air and a rock split in two. He ran all the way home, and arrived gasping, supporting himself on the parapet after he entered Anton's gate. He sat on the couch in Anton's studio for a few moments, his mind stunned and blank. That kiss - it hadn't looked like a first kiss. Of course it hadn't been, he cursed himself. He walked to Anton's workbench, unconsciously avoiding looking at the bad brooms that were on it, picked up some runed metal that lay on the table and flung it violently out of the window, saw it arc down and disappear towards the green bottom. He picked up more pieces from Anton's table, screws, wood parts, charcoal and cobber fragments, and threw them one by one into corners or out of the windows. He had a curious feeling that his brain remained calm and logical and that his body was out of control. He ran out on the balcony with an idea of jumping on to the rampart and doing a dance or standing on his head, but the empty space on the other side of the rampart stopped him.

He went up to Anton's room and paced around for a few moments, his hands in his pockets. He wondered when Anton was coming back? Or was he going to stay and make an afternoon of it, really take her, perhaps in public? He jerked Anton's closet door open and looked in. There was a freshly pressed, new-looking grey flannel suit that he had never seen Anton wearing. Thanial took it out. He took off his knee-length shorts and put on the grey flannel trousers. He put on a pair of Anton's shoes. Then he opened the bottom drawer of the chest and took out a clean blue-and-white striped shirt.

He chose a dark-blue silk tie and knotted it carefully. The suit fitted him. He re-parted his long hair and put the part a - little more to one side, the way Anton wore his.

'Ginny, you must understand that I don't love you,' Thanial said into the mirror in Anton's voice, with Anton's higher pitch on the emphasised words, with the little growl in his throat at the end of the phrase that could be pleasant or unpleasant, intimate or cool, according to Anton's mood. 'Ginny, stop it!' Thanial turned suddenly and made a grab in the air as if he were seizing Ginny's throat. He shook her, twisted her, while she sank lower and lower, until at last he left her, limp, on the floor. He was panting. He wiped his forehead the way Anton did, reached for a handkerchief and, not finding any, got one from Anton's top drawer, then resumed in front of the mirror. Even his parted lips looked like Anton's lips when he was out of breath from flying, drawn down a little from his lower teeth. 'You know why I had to do that,' he said, still breathlessly, addressing Ginny, though he watched himself in the mirror. 'You were interfering between Thanial and me - No, not that! But there is a bond between us!'

He turned, stepped over the imaginary body, and went stealthily to the window. He could see, beyond the bend of the road, the blurred slant of the steps that went up to the Quidditch area. Anton was not on the steps or on the parts of the road that he could see. Maybe they had flown off, maybe they were sleeping together, Thanial thought with a tighter twist of disgust in his throat. He imagined it, awkward, clumsy, unsatisfactory for Anton, and Ginny loving it. She'd love it even if he tortured her! Thanial darted back to the closet again and took a hat from the top shelf. It was a little grey newspaper-cap much like his own. He put it on rakishly. It surprised him how much he looked like Anton with the top part of his head covered. Really it was only his longer hair that was very different from Anton. Otherwise, his nose - or at least its general form - his narrow jaw, his youthful chins, his eyebrows if he held them right - 'What're you doing?'

Thanial whirled around. Anton was in the doorway. Thanial realized that he must have been right below at the gate when he had looked out. 'Oh - just amusing myself,' Thanial said in the deep voice he always used when he was embarrassed. 'Sorry, Anton.'

Anton's mouth opened a little, then closed, as if anger churned his words too much for them to be uttered. To Thanial, it was just as bad as if he had spoken.

Anton advanced to the room.

'Anton, I'm sorry if it -'

The violent slam of the door cut him off. Anton began opening his shirt scowling, just as he would have if Thanial had not been there, because this was his room, and what was Thanial doing in it? Thanial stood petrified with fear.

'I wish you'd get out of my clothes,' Anton said.

Thanial started undressing, his fingers clumsy with his mortification, his shock, because up until now Antin had always said wear this and wear that that belonged to him. Anton would never say it again.

Anton looked at Thanial's feet. 'Shoes, too? Are you crazy?'

'No.' Thanial tried to pull himself together as he hung up the suit, then he asked, 'Did you make it up with Ginny?'

'Ginny and I are fine,' Anton snapped in a way that shut Thanial out from them. 'Another thing I want to say, but clearly,' he said, looking at Thanial, 'I'm not queer. I don't know if you have the idea that I am or not.'

'Queer?' Thanial smiled faintly. 'I never thought you were queer.'

Anton started to say something else, and didn't. He straightened up, the ribs showing in his dark chest. 'Well, Ginny thinks you are.'

'Why?' Thanial felt the blood go out of his face. He kicked off Anton's second shoe feebly, and set the pair in the closet. 'Why should she? What've I ever done?' He felt faint. Nobody had ever said it outright to him, not in this way.

'It's just the way you act,' Anton said in a growling tone, and went out of the door.

Thanial hurried back into his pants. He had been half concealing himself from Anton behind the closet door, though he had his underwear on. Just because Anton liked him, Thanial thought, Ginny had launched her filthy accusations of him at Anton. And Anton hadn't had the guts to stand up and deny it to her! He felt like his stomach had turned into a tight rubber-knot - like his heart was aching.

He went downstairs and found Anton fixing himself a drink at the bar shelf. 'Anton, I want to get this straight,' Thanial began. 'I'm not queer either, and I don't want anybody thinking I am.'

'All right,' Anton growled.

The tone reminded Thanial of the answers Anton had given him when he had asked Anton if he knew this person and that in London. Some of the people he had asked Anton about were queer, it was true, and he had often suspected Anton of deliberately denying knowing them when he did know them. All right! Who was making an issue of it, anyway? Anton was. Thanial hesitated while his mind tossed in a welter of things he might have said, bitter things, conciliatory things, grateful and hostile. His mind went back to certain groups of people he had known in London, known and dropped finally, all of them, but he regretted now having ever known them. They had taken him up because he amused them, but he had never had anything to do with any of them! When a couple of them had made a pass at him, he had rejected them - though he remembered how he had tried to make it up to them later by getting ice for their drinks, catered their parties or helped when nobody asked him to, because he had been afraid they would start to dislike him. He'd been an ass! And he remembered, too, the humiliating moment when Vic Simmons had said, Oh, for Merlin's sake, Barthanial, shut up! when he had said to a group of people, for perhaps the third or fourth time in Vic's presence, 'I can't make up my mind whether I like men or women, so I'm thinking of giving them both up.' Thanial had used to pretend he was going to a psychiatrist healer, because everybody else was going to a healer, and he had used to spin wildly funny stories about his sessions with his healer to amuse people at parties, and the line about giving up men and women both had always been good for a laugh, the way he delivered it, until Vic had told him for Merlin's sake to shut up, and after that Thanial had never said it again and never mentioned his healer again, either. As a matter of fact, there was a lot of truth in it, Thanial thought. As people went, he was one of the most innocent and clean-minded he had ever known. That was the irony of this situation with Anton.

'I feel as if I've -' Thanial began, but Anton was not even listening. Anton turned away with a grim look around his mouth and carried his drink to the corner of the room. Thanial advanced towards him, a little fearfully, not knowing whether Anton would hurl him out the window, or simply turn around and tell him to get the hell out of the house. Thanial asked quietly, 'Are you in love with Ginny, Anton?'

'No, but I feel sorry for her. I care about her. She's been very nice to me. We've had some good times together. You don't seem to be able to understand that.'

'I do understand. That was my original feeling about you and her - that it was a platonic thing as far as you were concerned, and that she was probably in love with you.'

'She is. You go out of your way not to hurt people who're in love with you, you know.'

'Of course.' He hesitated again, trying to choose his words. He was still in a state of trembling apprehension, though Anton was not angry with him any more. Anton was not going to throw him out. Thanial said in a more self-possessed tone, 'I can imagine that if you both were in London you wouldn't have seen her nearly so often - or at all - but this village being so lonely -'

'That's exactly right. I haven't been to bed with her and I don't intend to, but I do intend to keep her friendship.'

'Well, have I done anything to prevent you? I told you, Anton, I'd rather leave than do anything to break up your friendship with Ginny.'

Anton gave a glance. 'No, you haven't done anything, specifically, but it's obvious you don't like her around. Whenever you make an effort to say anything nice to her, it's so obviously an effort.'

'I'm sorry,' Thanial said contritely. He was sorry he hadn't made more of an effort, that he had done a bad job when he might have done a good one.

'Well, let's let it go. Ginny and I are okay,' Anton said defiantly. He turned away and stared off through the window.

Thanial went into the kitchen to make himself a little-boiled coffee. He'd take the coffee up to his room, and study some Italian before Draco came, Thanial thought. This wasn't the time to make it up with Anton. Anton had his pride. He would be silent for most of the afternoon, then come around by about five o'clock after he had been working for a while, and it would be as if the episode with the clothes had never happened.

One thing Thanial was sure of: Anton was glad to have him here. Anton was bored with living by himself, and bored with Ginny, too - clearly. Thanial still had thirty galleons of the money Mr. Lestrange had given him, and he and Anton were going to use it on a spree in Manchester. Without Ginny. Anton had been amazed when Thanial had told him he hadn't had more than a glimpse of Manchester through a floo-station window.

While he waited for his coffee, Thanial put away the food that was to have been their lunch. He set a couple of pots of food in bigger pots of water to keep the ants away from them. There was also the little paper of fresh butter, the pair of eggs, the paper of four rolls that Aggie had brought for their breakfast tomorrow. They had to buy small quantities of everything every day, because there was no refrigerator. Anton wanted to buy a refrigerator with part of his father's money. He had mentioned it a couple of times. Thanial hoped he changed his mind, because a refrigerator would cut down their money, and Anton had a very definite budget for his own twenty galleons every month. Anton was cautious about money, in a way, yet down at the wharf, and in the village bars, he gave enormous tips right and left, and gave five sickles to any beggar who approached him.

Anton was back to normal by five o'clock. He had had a good afternoon of working. Thanial supposed, because he had been whistling for the last hour in his studio. Anton came out on the balcony where Thanial was scanning a book about poisons, and gave him some pointers on his notes.

'Then it's clockwise not the other way... It's an antidote, not a draught,' Anton said. 'It's only by becoming familiar with poisons that you can make the best antidotes - be glad, this is the only other subject I moderately understand.' Anton drew his long hand backwards through the air. He Always made gestures like that when he spoke of runes, graceful gestures as if he were waving his wand. 'When you're finished you'd better read Futhark or The Rune Primer - I have them inside. I had a dad who forced it on me.' Anton smiled and walked away down the garden path. Draco was just coming in the gate.

Thanial listened carefully to their laughing exchanges, straining to understand every word, but didn't get anything.

Draco came out on the balcony smiling, sank into a chair, and put his feet up on the rampart. His face was either smiling or frowning, and it could change from instant to instant. He was one of the few people in Slytherin, Anton said, who didn't mind mingling with muggles - out of spite for his parents. Draco's home was in Wiltshire, and Thanial still remembered the grandeur of it. When they joined forces during Potions-class Draco suggested they meet two times a week and study; one time in the Hogwarts Dungeons and another time in Hogsmeade. He came, dependably and punctually, one time a week between five and five-thirty, and they sat on the terrace and sipped wine or coffee and chatted for about an hour. Thanial tried his utmost to memorize everything Draco said about the stirring, the cutting, the colors. Draco also liked to discuss politics(He was anti-establishment, and apparently a conformist as well, though he still appreciated pureblooded traditions and said so to muggleborns at the drop of a hat, Anton said, because he was amused by their astonishment at the contradicting viewpoints). Draco found it hard to think of things to talk about sometimes, and then he would stare at Thanial and burst out laughing. But Thanial was making great progress, potionéering was the only thing he had ever studied because he had to, and he enjoyed it. Thanial wanted his skills to be as good as Draco's, and he thought he could make it that good in another month, if he kept on working hard at it.


	9. The Forbidden Section

Thanial wanted to visit the forbidden part of the library now that he had the keys. He thought himself something of an artist. There was skill, he thought, to the perfect "break and enter". His method took time but the rewards were high and the risk was low. He used the library regularly for a week or two; shifting between studying and observing and many times for so long that he was asked to leave. He learned the routines of the librarian. Once he had calculated the best point of entering and the best time it was on to the second phase. If he was unfamiliar with the security he would prepare for that too, and by asking around he determined which floors the caretaker, Argus Filch, usually roamed by night. Finally one night, when he was ready, he used a disillusionment charm on himself when the librarian had left, closing the door behind her. He already knew which key to use and was inside in no time. The candles were out, and he quietly slipped into the forbidden section using a second key. It was dark, but his eyes got used to that quickly.

Row after row of neatly lined up books with their spines facing outward, thaumaturgy-section arranged in alphabetical order; Alchemy, Ancient History, Myths, Legends, Runes, Arithmancy, Astrology, Charms, Conjuration, Creatures, Defensive and Offensive Magic, Healing, Magical Items, Necromancy, Occultism, Potions, Ritualistic Magic, Shamanism, Spell Creation, Summoning, Transfiguration, Transmutation - he took three books from the T-shelf, went to the W-shelf and seized two on wandless magic, before gripping a singe Alchemy-book on his way out. Next day at break, when the librarian had gone back from the forbidden section, she never noticed any books missing. Thanial smiled from behind a book - he was in. Once a week, and then three times a week, he took books and returned them, read, browsed and wrote notes.

One night, Thanial was on the second floor of the forbidden section when he heard something, and the light suddenly came from down below. Argus Filch stood by the entrance with lantern in hand. After some minutes of crouching in the dark it occurred to Thanial that Filch was a squib. Squibs could observe the magical world as well as wizards, but they couldn't interact with it. Thanial wouldn't risk getting caught so he stayed put. Filch had soon left and Thanial decided he would wait a bit before borrowing books again. He wouldn't risk it by being impatient. Those books could possibly hold information on the Philosopher's Stone, the mysteries of the Etherium, or even his Birthcraft.

Aggie was clearing away lunch. Thanial was changed and sat at the table with Ginny while Anton worked on the coffee. Thanial watched him through the kitchen-door, studying everything: the way he used the coffee grinder, the way he wore no socks, his pants, his rings.

Anton came in with a cup. 'Now you know why Miss Weasley always shows up for breakfast. It's not love, it's the wonderful coffee I make.'

Ginny smiled. 'It's the one task Anton can do on his own - make coffee.'

'Shut up.'

She saw the cup. 'Oh honey - is that for me?'

'No it's for Thanial as he didn't complain.'

'That ring's so great,' Thanial said as Anton handed him the warm cup, 'The green one.'

'Thanial, I love you.' Ginny was delighted. 'See!'' she said at Anton before looking back. 'I bought it for him, for his birthday.'

'It's superb.' Thanial said. He liked that ring the most: a large rectangular green stone set in gold on the third finger of his right hand.

'I had to promise, capital P, never to take it off,' Anton said, 'otherwise I'd give it to you.'

'Bastard!' Ginny said flicking a finger at him. 'Isn't it great, Thanial? I found it in Hogsmeade. I bargained for about two weeks.'

'I hope it wasn't cheap.' Anton asked.

'Oh, it was.'

Thanial looked at Ginny. 'I have to find a birthday present for Charlotte. Perhaps you can help me?'

'Charlotte?'

'My fiancèe.' Thanial said - the lie was necessary. He wanted everything between him and Anton to return as it was. He wanted him to forget the whole incident with the clothes.

Anton looked bemused. 'You're a dark horse, Thanial. Engaged?'

'Your parents met her.' Thanial lied again.

Anton breathed. 'Oh God - I can just imagine - if only Anton would settle down... doesn't every parent deserve a grandchild? Never! I swear on your ring, Ginny,' he kissed the ring, 'I am never going back.'

Thanial had given up asking by now, and was sure he would wield as much influence as any in trying to persuade Anton otherwise. He had really taken to like his comfortable life outside the school and smiled at the forecast of going home every day. Later that evening they had all flown along the coast of a lake in the highlands. And he'd clumsily maneuvered his way down to their picnic blanket while Anton supervised.

Thanial took a breath and sat down 'I'm doing this wrong, aren't I?'

'You're doing great. We'll make a player of you yet. You're doing really well.'

Ginny was mixing a pitcher but had listened. 'Dubious but special honor, Thanial - crewing Anton's team. Alright, bar's open.'

'Yes please!' Anton said and started to fill a glass while Ginny took hers up on a rock for a better look. Anton settled down beside Thanial.

Thanial smiled. 'Could we fly to France?'

'Sure. I love France, though apparition would be more sensible.'

'I have to go to France.'

'See France and die, isn't that right? Or is it Rome? You do something and die, don't you? Okay, France is on the list.'

'And Rome.' Thanial added.

'Which team do you support?' Anton asked and Thanial frowned, 'Don't tell me - you're a lost cause! That's the next thing to deal with. The world championship. Excellent flying. Excellent.' Ginny reappeared down the rock 'Ginny- Thanial has no team. We'll have to teach him about the Falmouth Falcons, too. Have you ever known such low class?'

'Poor Thanial. Good thing we're not getting married. We might have to invite him on our honeymoon.'

Ginny was in a very good mood and Thanial thought it best to roll with it for Anton's sake - he really wanted Anton to know that he cared and decided to join Ginny later on a shopping expedition in the village. The air had a coolness that could only mean the coming of winter, but he'd eventually get used to it so it didn't bother him. They walked down the cobblestone street towards the shops, next to a bar in the little square. Thanial had asked Ginny how she and Anton met.

'Oh I hated living there - that Devon-country crowd - so I fled to Hogwarts when I got my letter, and I was always flying to this little spot by the lake, and Anton used to practice his Quittich nearby and I would see him and he would see me, and he would show off. It was only later that I realized he only knows about seven maneuvers.'

They arrived at a small candy-stand. The girl he'd seen with Anton greeted them and waited for Ginny's order in a manner less than comfortable.

'Good day, Emma. I would like ten sherbet lemons, and three pumpkin pasty.'

'The usual?'

'Yes. The usual. Thanks.'

The girl's expression had turned sour and Thanial saw that Ginny had noticed it too. Emma bent down under her stand and packed the candy and pies.

Ginny frowned before continuing. 'Anyway, then one day, I sit on the grass, I see Anton, he starts to show off, and then all of a sudden he just descends, right down towards me, and grabs me! Now I had never spoken to him in my life - he said I'm going to Hogsmeade, tomorrow, and I want you to come with me. So I did.'

As they left to go back home Thanial started to feel his jaw uncomfortably tighten. Yes, he was annoyed. He wanted to be a great listener, he wanted Ginny to tell Anton that, but she just wouldn't stop blabbering. His curiosity had died out. Like a homemade sweater she was, beautifully composed and thoughtful in appearance, but itchy and irritable in comfort. Anton just couldn't help but love and put up with it. It made no sense.

At the edge of the square there was an area, where men played Snitch Snatcher along a track, aiming to catch the feathered ball on foot. Anton was there, playing intensely with Cedric and two other guys, one of whom Thanial had seen before with the girl, Emma. Thanial and Ginny looped back towards home, taking a side street. Thanial saw Anton waving and they waved back.

Ginny called out to him. 'If you're not at my place by 7.00, Thanial and I are running off together.'

Anton grinned. 'Okay!'

* * *

The other students had no chance - Thanial was on top of his game. He had an inherent ability to play the part, so displaying the characteristics of the stellar student was an easy task. Masking his wandless magic with his fake had gone according to plan and no one had even batted an eye when he also did it wordlessly. Thanial had actually come to the grand realization that he was better than the others; really - he was much better in most subjects. If he wasn't, as was the case with potionéering, he would fake it until he could make it, or learn quickly from the people around him.

Most teachers wanted students to ask questions when they didn't understand a concept that was being taught - like Pansy Parkinson; that girl's hand shot up every chance she got. Good students weren't afraid to ask questions because they knew that if they didn't get a particular concept, it could hurt them later on when that skill was expanded - so Thanial was inquisitive.

The perfect student wasn't necessarily the smartest student. This was important to realize for Thanial. There were plenty of students who were blessed with natural intelligence but lacked the self-discipline to hone that intelligence - somewhat like Anton. Teachers loved students who choose to work hard no matter what their level of intelligence was - so Thanial was hardworking.

Being involved in extra-curricular activities could help a student gain confidence which could improve academic success. Hogwarts provided a plethora of extra-curricular activities that students could participate in. Most good students got involved in some activity whether it was Dueling, Student Council, Quidditch, etc. - so Thanial was involved. All he had to do was look at the Jane Potter; she was a member of them all and she was reportedly a brilliant student.

Teachers loved good students who were natural leaders within their classroom. Whole classes had their own unique personalities and often times those classes with good leaders were good classes. Likewise, those classes that lacked peer leadership could be the most difficult to handle. Leadership skills were often innate, like they were for Draco Malfoy. There were those that had it and those that didn't. Being trustworthy was a key component of being a leader. If your classmates didn't trust you, then you would never be a leader. If you were a leader amongst your peers, you had the ultimate responsibility to lead by example and the ultimate power to motivate others to be successful - so Thanial was confident and influential

Motivation came from many places. The best students were the ones that were motivated to be successful - like Blaise Zabini's dream(absurd as it may be) to become the next Supreme Mugwump. Likewise, students who lacked motivation were the ones who were the hardest to reach, were often in trouble, and eventually dropped out of school. Students who were motivated to learn were easy to teach - so Thanial was motivated, of course.

No skill was lacking more in that generation of students than that of the ability to be a problem solver. Students who possessed true problem-solving skills were few and far between in that generation largely because of the accessibility that magic provided. At the simple flick of a wand, students today could access more than was probably healthy, thus rendering problem-solving skills virtually obsolete. Those students who did possess true problem-solving abilities were rare gems that teachers loved - Thanial was excellent at problem-solving.

The opportunity to learn was undervalued in Great Britain. Many parents didn't see value in education, thus their children didn't see value in education - like Ginny, who'd just as of late started to study. It was a sad reality that was often overlooked in the school reform movement. The best students took advantage of the opportunities they were afforded and valued the education that they had an opportunity to receive - Thanial eventually did so he was welcoming and grateful for opportunities.

Slytherin's Head of House, Professor Snape, would tell them that classes full of students who follow the rules and procedures have a better chance at maximizing their learning potential. Students who were well behaved were likely to learn more than their counterparts who became student discipline statistics. Nobody wanted to work with a student who'd constantly cause problems, but Professor Snape would try to move mountains for students who were polite, respectful, and followed the rules - so Thanial was well-behaved.

Thanial liked Professor McGonagall a lot, and she had once spoken to the class about the importance of support. You could not control who your parents or guardians were. She'd also found it important to note that there were plenty of successful people that did not have a solid support system growing up. It was something that you could overcome like Thanial himself had, but it did make it a lot easier if you had a healthy support system in place. These were people that had your best interest in mind. They pushed you to success, offered advice, and guided and directed your decisions throughout your life. Having a great support system didn't make or break you as a student, but it definitely gave you an advantage - Thanial had plenty of support; he carried himself through everything alone and his arms had become strong. He'd let the family-phenomenon, the idea of parents drift from his thoughts long ago.

Being trustworthy was a quality that would endear you not only to your teachers but also to your classmates. No one wanted to surround themselves with people that they ultimately could not trust. Professors loved students and classes that they could trust because they could give them liberties that often provided learning opportunities they would not be afforded otherwise. When a teacher gave you an opportunity they were putting faith into you that you were trustworthy enough to handle that opportunity. Good students valued those opportunities to prove that they were trustworthy - so Thanial was trustworthy, or in any case appeared like so.

Thanial sighed and his attention resumed to the potion-brewing. As the potion failed to please Thanial, an edge of temper crept into his expression. While Snape nodded genially and smiled Thanial felt mocked. Surely he could see that the color was not right? Thanial stopped abruptly and restarted cutting another Sopophorous bean from the beginning. He had seen this potion being brewed by Draco in the dungeons and if he couldn't match it then he might as well quit now. Again came an error, worse this time. He would have to practice three hours tonight instead of two. Less than perfection would not be tolerated.

* * *

Anton and Thanial had had a wonderful Saturday and after a few beers fooled around in the village. Anton jumped on Thanial's shoulders and made loud noises as to signal a horse to gallop. Thanial performed his part of a stallion gladly. The weather was as cold as ever, but Thanial hardly took notice as he sped along the street.

Anton and Thanial, still horsing about, passed Emma's candy store. Anton dismounted and went over to her - she seemed tense and a little troubled. They huddled, and Thanial bit his tongue. He hated that feeling of isolation.

The girl pushed herself out of Anton's grasp 'Did you get my message? I want to talk to you.'

Anton backed towards Thanial. 'I want to talk to you too... Smile for me.' He spun and ran back to Thanial, feinting to box him, then dancing, satyr-like, down the street.

That afternoon the weather cleared up a bit, apparently enough for Anton to suggest them going to Edinburgh, and they rented a two-person broom. The weather didn't hold up as well, but the alcohol and a heating-charm did take the edge of the cutting wind. The broom was a very fast model and it only took two hours before the city came into view. Anton steered down in a steep incline and, as the broom gained speed, Thanial happily clung to him.

'You're breaking my ribs!'

The wind was howling. 'What?'

'You're breaking my ribs!'

After they landed it all went all to fast; Bars after bars, mingling with strangers in the inner city, laughing, so much laughing, and soon the shadows were now twice as long as themselves. The air had turned damp and cool smelling faintly of a car's exhaust fumes, the sun dipped lower in the sky until the trees that lined the lane stood as black statues silhouetted against the darkening sky, slowly their shadows melted away into the blackness of night. Anton had somehow talked Thanial into an impromptu comedy-impression at a club and after doing it Thanial got a spontaneous applause from the onlookers. Anton beamed at Thanial. He was very impressed. They were in a rather mellow mood when they used Anton's Portkey home.

Ginny had done some shopping; A new icebox, incongruous in pride of place in the living room, was casting its glow on a delighted Anton as he pulled out a couple of beers, handing one to Thanial who was paging through the Collected Letters between Helena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin he'd "borrowed". The contents were not what he had hoped for(really just flirtatious letters of some sort), but the linguistic ability the Founders held were superb.

'I could fuck this icebox I love it so much.' Anton said before considering Thanial. 'What were you _actually_ doing in London?'

'I worked accounting a few places.'

'That's one job, you told me a lot of jobs.'

'A few places - that's a few jobs. Anyway, I don't want to think about London'

Anton smirked. 'The mysterious Mr. Botts. Ginny and I spend hours speculating.' He took a gulp of the beer. 'Cold beer. Thank you Dad.'

'Copy out from here...' Thanial said, handing a letter to Anton, pointing out the lines. Anton had come up with the idea to trick his father into getting a bigger allowance. The beautifully written letters were a great template.

Anton started to write on a piece of parchment. 'I love the fact you brought ancient love letters with you and no clothes. Aggie says you wash the same shirt out every night. Is that true?'

'No! I've got more than one shirt!'

'She can do that stuff for you.' Anton looked embarrassed. 'Just forget what I said before about my clothes. Anyway, just wear some of my things, wear anything you want, most of it's ancient.' Anton said as he finished writing.

Thanial couldn't hide his smile, now that everything was back to normal. 'Now your signature,' he said watching Anton write. 'Not "Anton". Your signature.'

Anton wrote his signature at the bottom of the parchment and Thanial studied the writing before taking off his glasses to clean them.

Anton looked at him. 'Without the glasses you're not even ugly.' he said taking them and trying them on. 'I don't need them because I never read. How do I look?'

'Like Clark Kent.' Thanial said taking them back, putting them on beaming at Anton. 'Now Superman.'

Anton cuffed him from behind while Thanial looked down at the parchment.

Anton sighed. 'I know. I write like a child.'

'Pretty vile. See this: The S and the T, do you see? - fine, vulnerable - that's pain, that's secret pain.'

'It must be a deep secret, cause I don't know about it.'

'Your handwriting - nothing more naked. See - nothing's quite touching the line - that's vanity.'

Anton played at being flattered. 'Well, we certainly know that's true.'

Ginny had used the weekend to visit her family in Devon, so he and Anton stayed up late. A glass of cherry on the rocks put them in the mood for wizard-chess, but Anton wanted a warm bath.

Not one moment of the day had been dull. Thanial, dressed, sat on the stool next to the bath. They were in the middle of playing chess, the board propped on the bath tray. Thanial settled his hand in the heated water, checking the temperature and then turned on the faucet for a burst of hot. Anton was absurdly happy and poured some more cherry. 'Do you have any brothers?'

Thanial smiled. 'No, no brothers, no sisters.'

'Me neither. Nor does Draco. All only children - what does that mean?' He looked at Thanial who looked at him, a little too long.

Thanial felt strange and twirled his hand in the water. 'Means we never shared a bath.' He paused. 'I'm cold. Can I get in?'

'No!'

'I didn't mean with you in it.' Thanial looked away.

Anton got up, standing naked. 'Okay, you get in. I'm like a prune anyway.'

He got out and walked past Thanial, who didn't turn around, but Anton backside was reflected in the mirror. Thanial watched, then Anton turned, holding his look momentarily before flicking Thanial with his towel. Thanial grinned.


	10. The Final Blow

They were inside Public Owls & Post and an official was studying Anton's passport photograph. It wasn't a recent picture and the official looked suspicious. Anton was used to it.

'It is me. It's an old picture.' he sighed at Thanial. 'Every time - 'is it you? Doesn't look like you.'

Anton signed for his allowance. He had a smart document case with his initials prominently embossed. Thanial watched him sign and collect a large wad of notes that would allow him to collect from the bank.

A clerk pulled forth some white envelopes. 'Letters - Lestrange, and for Botts.'

Thanial collected and studied the mail; he had owled a letter to himself from Charlotte, his pretend fiancée - just to keep up appearances. As they walked outside he held up one letter to Anton.

'Charlotte,' he said with anticipation, 'I miss you, when are you coming home? Stop telling me what a great time you're having, how you love Anton... and Ginny and...' he turned to the other letter, 'And this one, I think, is your dad...'

They had decided to use the pay-day to explore the wizarding-parts of Edinburgh. The Three Boomsticks had just installed a working floo, so they'd chosen to save some time using that. Thanial read the letter from Rabastan Lestrange as they walked down. He frowned and stopped reading.

'What does he say?'

Thanial pocketed the letter. 'He's getting impatient. He wants me to reassure him you'll be home by Thanksgiving.'

'You've got to get a new overcloak. Really. You must be sick of the same clothes. I'm sick of seeing you in them.'

'I can't. I can't keep spending your father's money.'

Anton's lip curled. 'I love how responsible you are. My Dad should make you Chief Accountant or something. Let me buy you a cloak. There's a great place when we get to Burghtrix Terrace, the Animorph.'

Thanial loved the idea and mouthed the word, 'Animorph.'

Anton began chanting. 'Going to Burghtrix. Taking Thanial to Burghtrix!'

Thanial had walked the streets of Diagonally his whole life, he knew them just the same as if they were etched in his head with a sharp knife, scored in deep like some strange work of art. Those were the streets he grew up on and for the most part he had been calm there, at home, on the down low with a steady heartbeat. Not now though. Though Burghtrix Terrace had the same spellbinding air of mystique his heart wanted out of his chest. It wanted to beat free of its cage. It pounded like it was going to crack a rib. His senses were on high alert. Every color was brighter, every noise louder, every stranger a cause to make his heart beat more fiercely still. It had been like that since he had seen some Aurors, marking out their turf like a wolf pack. He hadn't done anything wrong but they meant to dominate everyone regardless. He had felt the same anxiousness for the first few days going to and back from Hogwarts(seeing them patrol the grounds and watch guard); the Aurors just had that effect on him regardless the situation.

Anton and Thanial sat outside at a cafe on the main street. It was a very smart place, very sophisticated, and with a very young crowd. There were already several empty coffee cups and a half-empty bottle of wine on their table.

'So many Aurors these days,' Thanial declared as if hadn't a care either way.

'Yeah.' Anton said leaning back. 'Dumbledore's position carries a lot of power. He and the Chancellor can work miracles together - though, in my opinion, the need for all this Auror-nonsense comes back to their stupid rulings.'

'Yeah?'

Anton grunted. 'Well, for one -' he sat up, 'exiling half of the Death Eaters instead of giving life-sentences didn't do them much good. The blood of those Russian half-bloods is on their hands - being too forgiving during the trails. Just so typical of old Albus and the Chancellor - well all of the Potters actually.'

'What about your uncle and his wife?'

'Rodolphus and Bellatrix? After following the Dark Lord, murdering, torturing... They should have gotten the kiss for what they did. Disgusting!' Anton closed his eyes and leaned back again. 'No, the war in the east is on Dumbledore's hands no matter what the public says. They were too naive, too forgiving.'

'I agree. When you put it like that.' Thanial had been reading a pamphlet and felt incredibly impatient - he wanted to explore the district - Anton, meanwhile, had stretched out for the duration.

Anton had explained that Burghtrix Terrace was about thrice the size of Diagonally; lanes had been put for vehicles which Thanial had thought was very progressive. 'Where do we rent a vechicle for the ruins, or can we hire any of them - ?'

'Relax.'

'It's just there's so much to do in a single day.'

'Relax. The most important question is where to eat. I hope Cedric made a reservation.'

'Cedric?'

'Cedric Diggory. You've met him at school, you know - he's organizing the Championship camp.'

Thanial hated the idea of having that special day invaded and automatically gritted his teeth. Just when he was about to say something, a horn made him look up as Cedric Diggory illegally parked his open-top sports car opposite the cafe. Cedric saw Anton and bustled over.

Thanial found him disgusting to look at, but Anton was delighted. 'Cedric!'

Cedric had an annoying nonchalant flair about him 'Hello handsome!' he said before noticing a beautiful woman walking by. 'Don't you want to fuck every woman you see. Just once.'

Anton and Cedric kissed cheeks, continental-style.

'You've already met,' Anton said, 'This is Thanial Botts. Cedric Diggory.'

Cedric's smile was repugnant. 'Hey, if I'm late, think what her husband's saying!' He snickered and filled Anton's glass with wine, drinking it in one go standing up. 'So let's go. I got us a table inside at the Sweet Oyster.' And Anton was up, leaving Thanial to pick up all the tiny checks to work out the bill and pay it.

Anton chuckled. 'I'll tell you - I am so finished with Hogsmeade.' Cedric and Anton linked arms and crossed the street to Cedric's car.

'I know.' Cedric said, 'I've been there. Aberdeen is the place to be.' He looked back to meet Thanial's eyes - he was still struggling to settle the check. 'Barthanial! It's a two-seater. Standing Room Only. Chop, chop, Barthanial!'

Thanial felt abandoned and angry but walked over nonetheless. There was no room in the car and he had to crouch in the rear.

Cedric breathed. 'You're going to have to sit between us. But don't put your shoes on the seat, know what I mean, put them one on top of the other. Okay?'

The ride to the restaurant was short but uncomfortable, and the dinner would have been delicious if it hadn't been for Cedric's face and conversation only involving the latest in Quidditch. The food was objectively good, but Thanial had subjectively lost his appetite and had only nibbled his garlic-buttered chicken-breast.

Anton and Cedric decided to visit a Quidditch-shop without asking Thanial - Thanial wouldn't like to kill the mood so he tagged along. The store was hidden away down a cobbled alley, and stuffed with the trendiest young wizards, all of whom rifled the brooms under a fog of cigarette smoke. There were two testing booths, one of which had Cedric and Anton crammed into it, trying a firebolt. Thanial stood outside the booth, holding both of their jackets like a manservant, while inside and behind the glass doors they chatted animatedly. Thanial's anger had faded to a sadness of sorts and he looked longingly at the street, where the light was fading. Anton met his eyes, apparently catching his hangdog expression and pushed open the accordion doors.

'Look, Thanial, we've got to go to a club and meet some friends of Cedric's. The best thing is - if you want to be a tourist - go explore and we can meet up at the floo.'

Thanial tried to keep his appearance, but he felt absolutely crestfallen. 'What club?'

'Cedric's arranged it with some of the championship-crowd. Come if you want but I thought you wanted to see the ruins...?'

'I did. And then maybe get the cloak and what have you...'

Cedric got off the firebolt inside the booth. 'Anton - you've got to try this!'

Anton was clearly oblivious to Thanial. 'Listen, just take one of mine when we get back. Don't worry about it. I did the ruins with Ginny and, frankly, once is enough in anyone's life.'

Thanial handed him the coats and turned away.

'See you later,' he heard Anton say, 'Have fun.'

Thanial headed for the door, but then came back and rapped on the booth. Anton pushed it open.

'You said to make sure you didn't miss the floo. It closes at ten.'

Anton nodded and closed the door. Thanial, being the novice flyer, was ignored and he left them.

He could drown in the air, suffocate in the magically charmed humidity that rose above the street. People moved past, trapped in their own heads as he was in his. Children laughed, tantrum, cried or whined. He saw their parents react: placatingly, frustratedly, sometimes warmly. He could be on Mars or else invisible, but he was neither. He was right there, old boots on the old uneven cobblestones. He hiked up a lot of steps. Then he looked down from the plateau at the ruins below. Then he walked by the oversized fragments of a temple. This was the real him, the lover of beauty, inspired by art, by antiquity. He was awed. He was cold. He so much wished he weren't alone.

The sun had soon left the sky. It was past ten and Thanial stood, one foot on the step of the floo, waiting forlornly for Anton, then giving up as he was asked to hurry by an operator. He stepped into the hearth and made his way home.

Ginny wasn't in the house and Thanial felt strange - like he wanted something, yet didn't know what it might be; a yearning for something. He opened Anton's liquor-cabinet and took three bottles from the back - the good, strong stuff. He got upstairs to Anton's room, tried not to think at all, and opened the first bottle. Two months ago he hadn't been a drinker, but now he could take it and he wanted it. He took a big slurp of one bottle whilst he adjusted his hair in the mirror, catching one of Anton's expressions. Every time a thought crossed his mind he drank. He drank. He stared at himself with raised eyebrows. He drank. Continued to stare into the green voids as he moved closer to the mirror. He drank.

'What are you doing?'

Thanial turned, horrified, to see Anton standing in the doorway.

'Oh - just amusing myself. Sorry, Anton.' His head was spinning and he found it hard to utter anything. 'I didn't think you were coming back.'

Anton walked slowly over. 'I wish you'd get out of my room.'

Thanial started to collect the bottles, his fingers clumsy with mortification and shock.

Anton shook his head. 'My whiskey too?'

Thanial felt lame and ashamed. 'I just... Sorry.'

'Put them back, would you?'

'I thought you'd missed the floo.'

'Cedric flew me back in his car.'

Thanial quaked. 'Is Cedric here?'

'He's downstairs.'

Thanial tried to pull off a smile. 'I was just fooling around. Don't say anything. Please?' Anton sat down on the bed and he didn't look amused. 'I'm sorry.'

Anton let him leave. Thanial was feeling dizzy, but he still managed to return the wiskey and get back to his room without running into Cedric. He fell promptly asleep when he got to his bed.

The next morning Thanial came down, apprehensive, to find Ginny and Anton and Cedric having a jolly breakfast in the living-room. Anton looked perfectly happy.

Ginny saw him and smiled. 'Thanial. Come join us.'

Cedric made slow laugh as Thanial sat down at the table. 'I want this job of yours, Barthanial. I was just saying - You live in Scotland, sleep in Anton's house, drink Anton's wine, wear his clothes, and his father picks up the tab.' He chuckled, still with that nonchalant flair. 'If you get bored, let me know, I'll do it!'

Thanial was mortified and frozen in his seat. He put on a face of contentment but felt traumatized. He couldn't believe it had happened, and in front of everybody too. He sat soaking in the cruel laughter, his head beginning to spin. Anton had told Cedric everything - he had betrayed him. They would be reminding him of this at the school for sure. There was nothing for it, I'd have to laugh it off. Earlier in his life, he might have cast off his identity and start off somewhere new, but he was finally on a better track and that would be so unbelievably stupid - the feeling was still as awful though.

He was polite all throughout the breakfast, shrugging of the crude comments Cedric made in a refined manner. When the tall oaf finally left, he found himself in the need for some fresh air, and a drink perhaps. He left Anton to work on a new broom and walked out alone.

* * *

Thanial walked briskly across the balcony and into Anton's studio. 'Want to go to Ireland in a coffin?' he asked.

'What?' Anton looked up from his worktable.

'I've been talking to a Scottish in Hog's Head. We'd start out from Edinburgh, ride in coffins in the baggage car escorted by some Irishmen, and we'd get eight galleons apiece. I have the idea it concerns Euphoria Elixirs.'

'Smuggling elixirs in the coffins? Isn't that an old stunt?'

'He talked in Gaelic, so I didn't understand everything, but he said there'd be three coffins, and maybe the third has a real corpse in it and they've put the bottles into the corpse. Anyway, we'd get the trip plus the experience.' He emptied his pockets of the packs of ScruffyCats that he had just bought from a street peddler for Anton. 'What do you say?'

'I think it's a marvelous idea. To Ireland in a coffin!'

There was a funny smile on Anton's face, as if Anton were pulling his leg by pretending to fall in with it, when he hadn't the least intention of falling in with it. 'I'm serious,' Thanial said. 'He really is on the lookout for a couple of willing young men. The coffins are supposed to contain the bodies of Irish casualties from Estonia - from the war. The Irish escort is supposed to be the relative of one of them, or maybe all of them.' It wasn't exactly what the man had said to him, but it was near enough. And eight galleons was, after all, plenty for a spree in Dublin. Anton was still hedging about Ireland.

Anton looked at him sharply, put out the bent wisp of the cigarette he was smoking, and opened one of the packs of Cats. 'Are you sure the guy you were talking to wasn't under the influence of elixirs himself?'

'You're so damned cautious these days!' Thanial said with a laugh. 'Where's your spirit? You look as if you don't even believe me! Come with me and I'll show you the man. He's still down there waiting for me. His name's Benja.'

Anton showed no sign of moving. 'Anybody with an offer like that doesn't explain all the particulars to you. They get a couple of toughs to ride from Edinburgh to Ireland, maybe, but even that doesn't make sense to me.'

'Will you come with me and talk to him? If you don't believe me, at least look at him.'

'Sure.' Anton got up suddenly. 'I might even do it for eight galleons.' Anton closed a book of poetry that had been lying face down on his studio couch before he followed Thanial out of the room. Ginny had a lot of books of poetry. Lately Anton had been borrowing them.

The man was still sitting at the corner table in Hog's Head when they came in. Thanial smiled at him and nodded.

'Hello, Benja,' Thanial said. 'Can we sit?'

'Yes yes,' the man said, gesturing to the chairs at his table.

'This is my friend,' Thanial said carefully so he could understand. 'He wants to know if the work with the railroad journey is correct.' Thanial watched Benja looking Anton over, sizing him up, and it was wonderful to Thanial how the man's dark, tough, callous-looking eyes betrayed nothing but polite interest, how in a split second he seemed to take in and evaluate Anton's faintly smiling but suspicious expression, Anton's tan that could not have been acquired except by months of flying in the sun, his worn, Scottish-made clothes and his pureblooded rings.

A smile spread slowly across the man's pale, flat lips, and he glanced at Thanial.

'So?' Thanial prompted, impatient.

The man lifted his sweet firewhiskey and drank. 'The job is real, but I dinnae think yer mukker is the right man.'

Thanial looked at Anton. Anton was watching the man alertly, with the same neutral smile that suddenly struck Thanial as contemptuous. 'Well, at least it's true, you see!' Thanial said to Anton.

'Mm-m,' Anton said, still gazing at the man as if he were some kind of animal which interested him, and which he could kill if he decided to.

Anton could have talked in accent to the man. Anton didn't say a word. Three weeks ago, Thanial thought, Anton would have taken the man up on his offer. Did he have to sit there looking like a stool pigeon or a ministry detective waiting for reinforcements so he could arrest the man? 'Well,' Thanial said finally, 'you believe me, don't you?'

Anton glanced at him. 'About the job? How do I know?'

Thanial looked at the Scotsman expectantly.

The Scotsman shrugged. 'There is no need to discuss it, is there?' he asked in Gaelic.

'No,' Thanial said. A crazy, directionless fury boiled in his blood and made him tremble. He was furious at Anton. Anton was looking over the man's dirty nails, dirty shirt collar, his ugly dark face that had been recently shaven though not recently washed, so that where the beard had been was much lighter than the skin above and below it. But the Scotsman's dark eyes were cool and amiable, and stronger than Anton's. Thanial felt stifled. He was conscious that he could not express himself so Benja would understand. He wanted to speak both to Anton and to the man.

'Nothing, thanks, Aberforth,' Anton said calmly to the owner who had come over to ask what they wanted. Anton looked at Thanial. 'Ready to go?'

Thanial jumped up so suddenly his straight chair upset behind him. He set it up again, and bowed a good-bye to the Scotsman. He felt he owed the Scotsman an apology, yet he could not open his mouth to say even a conventional good-bye. The man nodded good-bye and smiled. Thanial followed Anton's long white-clad legs out of the bar.

Outside, Thanial said, 'I just wanted you to see that it's true at least. I hope you see.'

'All right, it's true,' Anton said, smiling. 'What's the matter with you?'

'What's the matter with you?' Thanial demanded.

'The man's a crook. Is that what you want me to admit? Okay!'

'Do you have to be so damned superior about it? Did he do anything to you?'

'Am I supposed to get down on my knees to him? I've seen crooks before. This village gets lots of them.' Anton's dark eyebrows frowned. 'What the hell is the matter with you? Do you want to take him up on his crazy proposition? Go ahead!'

'I couldn't now if I wanted to. Not after the way you acted.'

Anton stopped in the road, looking at him. They were arguing so loudly, a few people around them were looking, watching.

'It could have been fun,' Thanial said, 'but not the way you chose to take it, two months ago when we went to Edinburgh, you'd have thought something like this was fun.'

'Oh, no,' Anton said, shaking his head. 'I doubt it.'

The sense of frustration and inarticulateness was agony to Thanial. And the fact that they were being looked at. He forced himself to walk on, in tense little steps at first, until he was sure that Anton was coming with him. The puzzlement, the suspicion, was still in Anton's face, and Thanial knew Anton was puzzled about his reaction. Thanial wanted to explain it, wanted to break through to Anton so he would understand and they would feel the same way. Anton had felt the same way he had two months ago. 'It's the way you acted,' Thanial said. 'You didn't have to act that way. The fellow wasn't doing you any harm.'

'He looked like a dirty crook!' Anton retorted. 'For Merlin's sake, go back if you like him so much. You're under no obligation to do what I do!'

Now Thanial stopped. He had an impulse to go back, not necessarily to go back to the Scotsman, but to leave Anton. Then his tension snapped suddenly. His shoulders relaxed, aching, and his breath began to come fast, through his mouth. He wanted to say at least, 'All right Anton,' to make it up, to make Anton forget it. He felt tongue-tied. He stared at Anton's blue eyes that were still frowning, the Lestrange eyebrows black and the eyes themselves shining and empty, nothing but little pieces of blue jelly with a black dot in them, meaningless, without relation to him. You were supposed to see the soul through the eyes, to see love through the eyes, the one place you could look at another human being and see what really went on inside, and in Anton's eyes Thanial saw nothing more now than he would have seen if he had looked at the hard, bloodless surface of a mirror. Thanial felt a painful wrench in his breast, and he covered his face with his hands. It was as if Anton had been suddenly snatched away from him. They were not friends. They didn't know each other. It struck Thanial like a horrible truth, true for all time, true for the people he had known in the past and for those he would know in the future: each had stood and would stand before him, and he would know time and time again that he would never know them, and the worst was that there would always be the illusion, for a time, that he did know them, and that he and they were completely in harmony and alike. For an instant the wordless shock of his realisation seemed more than he could bear. He felt in the grip of a fit, as if he would fall to the ground. It was too much: the foreignness around him, the different culture, his failure, and the fact that Anton hated him. He felt surrounded by strangeness, by hostility. He felt Anton yank his hands down from his eyes.

'What's the matter with you?' Anton asked. 'Did that guy give you a shot of something?'

'No.'

'Are you sure? In your drink?'

'No.' The first specs of the evening snow fell on his head. There was a rumble of thunder. Hostility from above, too. 'I want to die,' Thanial said in a small voice.

Anton yanked him by the arm. Thanial tripped over a doorstep. They were in the little bar opposite the post office. Thanial heard Anton ordering a brandy, specifying Scottish brandy because he wasn't good enough for French, Thanial supposed. Thanial drank it off, slightly sweetish, medicinal-tasting, drank three of them, like a magic medicine to bring him back to what his mind knew was usually called reality: the smell of the cirgarette in Anton's hand, the curlycued grain in the wood of the bar under his fingers, the fact that his stomach had a hard pressure in it as if someone were holding a fist against his navel, the vivid anticipation of the long steep walk from here up to the house, the faint ache that would come in his thighs from it.

'I'm okay,' Thanial said in a quiet, deep voice. 'I don't know what was the matter. Must have been the cold that got me for a minute.' He laughed a little. That was reality, laughing it off, making it silly, something that was more important than anything that had happened to him in the eight weeks since he had met Anton, maybe that had ever happened to him.

Anton said nothing, only put the cigarette in his mouth and took a couple of sickles from his black dragonskin wallet and laid them on the bar. Thanial was hurt that he said nothing, hurt like a child who has been sick and probably a nuisance, but who expects at least a friendly word when the sickness is over. But Anton was indifferent. Anton had bought him the brandies as coldly as he might have bought them for a stranger he had encountered who felt ill and had no money. Thanial thought suddenly, Anton doesn't want me to go to the championship. It was not the first time Thanial had thought that. Ginny was going to the championship now. She and Anton had bought a new giant-sized tent to take to the championship the last time they had been in Edinburgh. They hadn't asked him if he had liked the tent, or anything else. They were just quietly and gradually leaving him out of their preparations. Thanial felt that Anton expected him to take off, in fact, just before the championship trip. A couple of weeks ago, Anton had said he would introduce him to some of the aristocratic quidditch-crowd. Anton had met up with some of them at lunch one day at school, but he had not talked to him.

'Ready?' Anton asked.

Thanial followed him out of the bar like a dog.

'If you can get home all right by yourself, I thought I'd run up and fly with Ginny for a while,' Anton said on the road.

'I feel fine,' Thanial said.

'Good.' Then he said over his shoulder as he walked away, 'Want to pick up the mail? I might forget.'

Thanial nodded. He went into the post office. There were two letters, one to him from Anton's father, one to Anton from someone in London whom Thanial didn't know. He stood in the doorway and opened Mr. Lestrange's letter, unfolded the typewritten sheet respectfully. It had the impressive pale green letterhead of Lestrange-Parkinson Broomcraft, Inc., with the snitch's-wings-trademark in the center.

10 Nov. 19

My dear Thanial,

In view of the fact you have been with Anton over two months and that he shows no more sign of coming home than before you went, I can only conclude that you haven't been successful. I realize that with the best of intentions you reported that he is considering returning, but frankly, I don't see it anywhere in his letter of 26 October. As a matter of fact, he seems more determined than ever to stay where he is.

I want you to know that I and my wife appreciate whatever efforts you have made on our behalf, and his. You need no longer consider yourself obligated to me in any way. I trust you have not inconvenienced yourself greatly by your efforts of the past months, and I sincerely hope the transfer to Hogwarts has afforded you some pleasure despite the failure of its main objective.

Both my wife and I send you greetings and our thanks.

Sincerely,

D. R. Lestrange

It was the final blow. With the cool tone-even cooler than his usual businesslike coolness, because this was a dismissal and he had injected a note of courteous thanks in it - Mr. Lestrange had simply cut him off. He had failed. 'I trust you have not inconvenienced yourself greatly...' Wasn't that sarcastic? Mr. Lestrange didn't even say that he would like to see him again when he returned to London.

Thanial walked mechanically up the hill. He imagined Anton on the pitch with Ginny now, narrating to her the story of Benja in the bar, and his peculiar behavior on the road afterward. Thanial knew what Ginny would say: 'Why don't you get rid of him, Anton?' Should he go back and explain to them, he wondered, force them to listen? Thanial turned around, looking at the inscrutable square front of the practice-area up on the hill, at its dark-looking trees. His overcloak was getting wet from the snow. He turned its collar up. Then he walked on quickly up the hill towards Anton's house. At least, he thought proudly, he hadn't tried to wheedle any more money out of Mr. Lestrange, and he might have. He might have, even with Anton's cooperation, if he had ever approached Anton about it when Anton had been in a good mood. Anybody else would have, Thanial thought, anybody, but he hadn't, and that counted for something.

He stood at the corner of the balcony, staring out at the vague uneven line of the horizon and thinking of nothing, feeling nothing except a faint, dreamlike lostness and aloneness. Even Anton and Ginny seemed far away, and what they might be talking about seemed unimportant. He was alone. That was the only important thing. He began to feel a tingling fear at the end of his spine, tingling over his buttocks.

He turned as he heard the gate open. Anton walked up the path, smiling, but it struck Thanial as a forced, polite smile.

'What're you doing standing there in the snow?' Anton asked, ducking into the hall door.

'It's very refreshing,' Thanial said pleasantly. 'Here's a letter for you.' He handed Anton his letter and stuffed the one from Mr. Lestrange into his pocket.

Thanial hung his cloak in the hall closet. When Anton had finished reading his letter - a letter that had made him laugh out loud as he read it - Thanial said, 'Do you think Ginny would like to go up to Ireland with us when we go?'

Anton looked surprised. 'I think she would.'

'Well, ask her,' Thanial said cheerfully.

'I don't know if I should go up to Ireland,' Anton said. 'I wouldn't mind getting away somewhere for a few days, but Ireland -' He lighted a cigarette. 'I'd just as soon go up to Aviemore or even Inverness. That's quite a town.'

'But Ireland - Inverness can't compare with Dublin, can it?'

'No, of course not, but it's a lot closer.'

'But when will we get to Ireland?'

'I don't know. Any old time. Ireland will still be there.'

Thanial listened to the echo of the words in his ears, searching their tone. The day before yesterday, Anton had received a letter from his father. He had read a few sentences aloud and they had laughed about something, but he had not read the whole letter as he had a couple of times before. Thanial had no doubt that Mr. Lestrange had told Anton that he was fed up with Barthanial Botts, and probably that he suspected him of using his money for his own entertainment. A month ago Anton would have laughed at something like that, too, but not now, Thanial thought. 'I just thought while I have a little money left, we ought to make our Ireland trip,' Thanial persisted.

'You go up. I'm not in the mood right now. Got to save my strength for the championship.'

'Well - I suppose we'll make it Inverness then,' Thanial said, trying to sound agreeable, though he could have wept.

'All right.'

Thanial darted from the hall into the kitchen. The huge white form of the refrigerator icebox sprang out of the corner at him. He had wanted a drink, with ice in it. Now he didn't want to touch the muggle device. Ginny had apparently spent a whole day in Devon, looking at refrigerators, inspecting ice trays, counting the number of gadgets. Anton and Ginny talked and praised it with the enthusiasm of newlyweds. Thanial realized suddenly why he hated the refrigerator so much. It meant that Anton was staying put. It finished not only their Irish trip this winter, but it meant Anton probably never would move to Edinburgh or Europe to live, as he and Thanial had talked of doing in Thanial's first weeks here. Not with a refrigerator that had the distinction of being one of only about four in the village, a refrigerator with six ice trays and so many shelves on the door that it looked like a supermarket swinging out at you every time you opened it.

Thanial fixed himself an iceless drink. His hands were shaking. Only yesterday Anton had said, 'Are you going home for Christmas?' very casually in the middle of some conversation, but Anton knew damned well he wasn't going home for Christmas. He didn't have a home, and Anton knew it. He had told Anton all about Aunt Kate in London. It had simply been a big hint, that was all. Ginny was full of plans about Christmas. She had a can of English plum pudding she was saving, and she was going to get a turkey from some vendor - not even considering her family in Devon. Thanial could imagine how she would slop it up with her saccharine sentimentality. A Christmas tree, of course, probably cut from the garden. 'Silent Night.' Eggnog. Gooey presents for Anton. Ginny knitted. She took Anton's socks to darn all the time. And they'd both slightly, politely, leave him out. Every friendly thing they would say to him would be a painful effort. Thanial couldn't bear to imagine it. All right, he'd leave. He would join the Slytherins in the dungeons. He'd do something rather than endure Christmas with them.

* * *

Hogwarts had its own Quidditch pitch where Quidditch teams could practice, hold try-outs and play matches against each other. Thanial had been told that each year would see a total of six inter-house matches, where each house would compete for the Quidditch Cup, along with numerous training sessions by each house team. Hundreds of seats were raised in stands around the pitch so the spectators were high enough to see what was going on. The snowfall blew sideways under the canopy where Thanial sat alone, reading. He flinched from the bench and looked out where he saw Cedric and Anton and Ginny flying. It was after-hours and they had the whole pitch to themselves because of the storm.

Ginny dived back onto the seats, retrieved her wand and used a heating-charm on herself. 'You really should take a spin, it's marvelous.' She took off her goggles.

'I'm fine.'

She approached him, still shivering, and charmed herself dry as they spoke. 'Are you okay?'

'Sure.'

They both watched Anton and Cedric fool around in the air.

'The thing with Anton -', said Ginny, though slightly reluctant in tone, 'it's like the sun shines on you and it's glorious... then he forgets you and it's very very cold.'

Thanial didn't need her sympathy. 'So I'm learning.'

'He's not even aware of it. When you've got his attention you feel like you're the only person in the world. That's why everybody loves him. Other times...'

There was yell from Anton as Cedric wrestled with him in the air. Anton laughed as he was choked from behind. 'He's gonna drop me!'

Ginny sighed. 'It's always the same whenever someone new comes into his life - Cedric, Oliver Wood, Draco Malfoy - he's actually wonderful - you know him right, he want's to be a potionéer? - ... and especially you, of course...' she paused for a time, regarding the boys in the air, 'and that's only the boys.'

Thanial could hear her choke up after saying that. Perhaps she had known about the other girl from Hogsmeade all along?

They watched as Cedric pushed Anton with the backend of his broom.

Ginny grunted before yelling out to them. 'Tell me, why is it when men play they always play at killing each other...!?' She sighed again and looked at Thanial. 'I'm sorry about the championship by the way.'

'What about the championship?'

'Didn't Anton say? - he talked to Cedric... apparently it's not going to work out -' Thanial felt his stomach churn, he couldn't hide the devastation and Ginny noticed before looking away, 'Cedric says there isn't enough room at the camp.'

Thanial didn't say anything after that. The silence on the bench stretched until they the boys also took a break.

Anton was talking with Cedric by the banister. 'Come on, Cedric, do you really have to go back? At least come down with us and stick around for the Festival of the Phoenix.'

'I don't think so. Come back with me to Aberdeen. There's this great new club. Have some drinks, lotta ladies...'

Ginny got up and disappeared into the tower, going down below.

Anton made a face at Cedric. 'Do you think you can pack up our things?'

'Sure.'

Anton went after Ginny. 'Just dispose of the bottles, we don't want Sprout on our asses.'

'What are you doing?'

'Ginny-maintenance,' Anton replied as he went down under.

Cedric chuckled. 'Alright.'

Thanial could hear Anton walking around down under the seats and Cedric began to summon the Quittich gear and empty wine-bottles.

From where Thanial sat he could see the forbidden forest in the distance, but he could also look down under the bench, the jagged planks offering him a restricted view. He looked down and there was a flash of flesh, then nothing. Then as a wind pushed him to the side, he glimpsed Ginny's jacket flung on the floor, and then Ginny's bare foot kicking out rhythmically, the red-painted toes straining. The well-defined back of Anton swayed over her. Faint groans could be heard escaping the cracks, mingling with the wind.

Thanial was completely mesmerized, aroused, and absolutely betrayed. They had sex. Right under him. Anton with Ginny? Sex!

'Barthanial - How's the peeping?' Cedric snickered and Thanial snapped out of it, looking back towards the woods. 'Come on Thanny, you were looking. Thanny Thanny Thanny.'

Shamed, Thanial didn't look back. He stared at the snow, swirling chaotically in the wind before him, its turmoil reflecting his.

Never before had Thanial noticed how time was so much like water; that it can pass slowly, a drop at a time, even freeze, or rush by in a blink. His fine watch said it was measured and constant, tick tock, part of an orderly world; the clock lied. The rest of the afternoon passed like thousands of camera frames per second shown one at a time. In that slow time-bubble the laughter was louder, coldness was colder and colors were brighter. All the while his insides felt as if there was nothing there, nothing to need feeding, nothing to have need of anything at all.

They returned to Hogsmeade that afternoon - just him, Anton and Ginny. Thanial got off the carriage last. He glanced back at the road for no particular reason. A girl was standing in the snowfall; in the orange light of a streetlamp. It was Emma, the girl from the candy shop. She seemed sad, crying Thanial guessed. Anton and Ginny did not notice her.


	11. Death and Rebirth

There came a loud cracking sound from the frozen lake and it echoed all around. A bird's head suddenly broke the surface of the ice.

It was a statue of a phoenix, life-sized, adorned with flowers and a lace veil. As it was revealed, golden and staring, the surrounding ice melted until the whole lake was clear and four men emerged, lifting the statue on a palette, wading towards the shore. The Pheonix aloft on their shoulders sprang into a crimson fire and all the people applauded loudly.

The whole town of Hogsmeade was in attendance for that Annual Festival of the Pheonix, either standing on balconies, or on shore, flanking the holy-men and choir and incense. Thanial, Anton, and Ginny watched from Anton's balcony. There were hymns and, as the statue was carried to the shore, the men's heads barely above the waves, the congregation applauded at the illusion that the Pheonix was taking to the air.

Thanial suddenly saw another head appear on the surface of the water, about fifty yards from the statue. There was a scream from among the crowd as someone noticed the body. Thanial noticed it too and swallowed - It was Emma.

One of the men carrying the statue turned first towards the direction of the scream and then towards the floating corpse. It was Emma's brother, and in a second he had let go of the palette, causing it to topple, and - in absolute grief - waded, swam, splashed towards the body.

There came an awful sound as the Phoenix plunged into the water, and steam rose in a great column. Pandemonium in the crowd, which broke up with other people splashing, fully clothed, into the water. From the balcony, Thanial turned and looked at Anton, catching his eye - the eye of a person in absolute disbelief.

They waited.

They waited in silence.

They waited until the orange glow of an afternoon sun bathed the snow-covered valley in its sheen.

Thanial and Anton and Ginny watched from the balcony as below them two healers finally arrived and took away the body. It seemed as if the whole town looked on - parents, brother, sisters, Aurors, holy-men... As the corpse was loaded into a carrier a brief scuffle occurred between Emma's brother and another boy. They were pulled apart as the healers went away.

Thanial felt the need to ask. 'What's the fight about? That's her boyfriend, isn't it? Are they blaming him?'

'I don't know! Why are you asking me?' Anton replied sharply, looking agitated, 'How can it take an hour to find a healer?'

Ginny touched him conciliatory. 'Well, she was already dead, honey, wasn't she, so I suppose -'

'I don't know why people say that wizardkind's civilized. It isn't. It's fucking primitive.' And with that he kicked out violently at a chair supporting his crafting-tools; metal scraps, wood and chair went flying across the balcony. Anton stormed inside.

'Anton!' Ginny cried.

'I'll go and see what's the matter.' Thanial offered, but Ginny put a hand out to stop him.

She bore a strange frown. 'I'll go.'

Anton and Ginny were alone for a time after that and Thanial stayed out of their way, though he felt he could have talked to Anton just as well if not better - the annoyance nagged at him like a mosquito in the late summer. He tried to ignore his thoughts by studying his transcribed records from the forbidden library. He was currently evaluating a collection of parchments concerning birthcrafts and it hadn't given him any answers he didn't already know; it was more or less just a compilation of different birthcrafts from history. Some of them were more powerful than others, like Baba Yaga's ability to speak with trees, which was called a Dendromouth. Thanial understood in principle why that information had been locked away in the forbidden section - birthcrafts were by custom a very private thing to discuss openly, but similar to the Animagus-transformation, and other rare abilities, the Ministry would need registration. The Slytherins had been unexpectedly open when sharing theirs, and Thanial now knew a handful of birthcrafts. Anton and Ginny had also shared theirs; Anton's birthcraft enabled him to sleep very little, perhaps just an hour a night, which Thanial had thought very cool in the beginning, but he soon understood that Anton still was as lazy as any he'd met before. Ginny's was on the other hand very impressive, and Thanial had been generally surprised when she'd told him. She was a Legilimens; in other words, able to delve into the mind of a person, permitting her to see memories, emotions and thoughts. It was ancient, and had existed since medieval times. Occlumency could prevent a Legilimens from accessing one's thoughts and feelings, or influence them. Her birthcraft had granted her a power that took Albus Dumbledore years to master, but from what Ginny had explained, she had only used it a few times by accident and was very much against the power - she had apparently lost a friend because of it and swore thereafter to keep it under control.

A human mind, Thanial's Occlumency book had said, was only exposed to a Legilimens along certain surfaces. If you failed to defend your surfaces, the Legilimens would go through and be able to access any part of you which their own mind was able to comprehend...

... which tended not to be much. Human minds, it seemed, were hard for humans to understand on any level but the shallowest. Thanial had wondered if knowing lots of cognitive muggle-science could make him an incredibly powerful Legilimens, but repeated experience had ﬁnally driven into him the lesson that he needed to get a little less excited in his anticipations about this sort of thing. It wasn't as if any cognitive scientist understood humans well enough to make one.

To learn the counter, Occlumency, the ﬁrst step was to imagine yourself to be a diﬀerent person, pretending it as thoroughly as you could, immersing yourself entirely in that alternate persona. You wouldn't always have to do that, but in the beginning, it was how you learned where your surfaces were. The Legilimens would try to read you, and you would feel it happening if you paid close enough attention, you would sense them trying to enter. And your job was to make sure that they always touched your imaginary persona and not the real one.

When you were good enough at that, you could imagine being a very simple sort of person, pretend to be a rock, and make a habit of leaving the pretense in place where all your surfaces were. That was a standard Occlumency barrier. Pretending to be a rock was hard to learn, but easy to do afterward, and the exposed surface of a mind was much shallower than its interior, so with enough practice you could keep it up as a background habit.

Or if you were a perfect Occlumens, you could race ahead of any probes, answering queries as fast as they were asked, so that the Legilimens would enter through your surfaces and see a mind indistinguishable from whoever you were pretending to be.

Even the best Legilimens could be fooled that way. If a perfect Occlumens claimed they were dropping their Occlumency barriers, there was no way to know if they were lying. Worse, you might not know you were dealing with a perfect Occlumens. They were rare, but the fact that they existed meant you couldn't trust Legilimency on anyone.

It was a sad commentary on how little human beings understood each other, how little any wizard comprehended the depths lying beneath the mind's surface, that you could fool the best human telepaths by pretending to be someone else.

But then human beings only understood each other in the ﬁrst place by pretending. You didn't make predictions about people by modeling the hundred trillion synapses in their brain as separate objects. Ask the best social manipulator on Earth to build you an Artiﬁcial Intelligence from scratch, and they'd just give you a dumb look. You predicted people by telling your brain to act like theirs. You put yourself in their place. If you wanted to know what an angry person would do, you activated your own brain's anger circuitry, and whatever that circuitry output, that was your prediction. What did the neural circuitry for anger actually look like inside? Who knew? The best social manipulator on Earth might not know what neurons were, and neither might the best Legilimens.

Anything a Legilimens could understand, an Occlumens could pretend to be. It was the same trick either way—probably implemented by the same neural circuitry in both cases, a single set of control circuits for reconﬁguring your own brain to act as a model of someone else's.

And so the race between telepathic offense and telepathic defense had been a decisive win for defense. Otherwise the entire magical world, maybe even the whole Earth, would have been a very diﬀerent place...

Thanial slumped back in the chair and took a deep breath before continuing. There was a slight smile on his face.

For once, just once, Thanial hadn't gotten shortchanged in the powers department.

Aunt Kate had taught him to withstand Legilimency from very early on in his life; to lie and pretend not to know anything when questioned by authorities. He had learned how to portray different personalities at a time when didn't understand why. Only when he had perfected the skill did he comprehend that he had become an Occlumens. A very, very good Occlumens. If he had any room in his heart for Aunt Kate, it would be for teaching him to withstand Legilimency - he was thankful for that.

Thanial forced the memory of Aunt Kate out of his head and returned to the passage where his thoughts had started to wander.

Later, when Ginny had went out with Aggie, Thanial got up and walked to Anton's workroom. Anton was slumped in an armchair at the open window overlooking the small lake. He was working on a broom.

Thanial appeared and began tidying the mess in the room. He picked up empty bottles, an abandoned plate. 'I know why you're upset.' Thanial said as Anton continued the polishing of the wood, 'I know about Emma, Anton. About you and Emma.'

Anton stopped the motion of his hand. 'What about us?'

Thanial now had an armful of dishes and glasses and bottles.

Anton surprised Thanial when he threw the wood down. 'You don't have to clean up! Really!'

Thanial said nothing and disappeared into the kitchen, and heard Anton sigh as he returned. 'She was pregnant. Did you know that?' he paused. 'Do you know what that means in a place like this?'

'I'm prepared to take the blame.' Thanial said without hesitation. He was honest.

'What are you talking about?'

Thanial had too many reasons he couldn't say out loud. There was a silence between them as he contemplated how to answer. 'You've been so good to me.' he finally said. 'You're the brother I never had. I'm the brother you never had.'

Anton looked baffled, then sad, and then his face fell. 'She came to me for help, she needed money, and I didn't help her. I didn't help her. Now she's dead and it's my fault.'

'I'm not going to say anything - to Ginny, or anybody, the Aurors - It's a secret between us and I'll keep it.' Thanial said, deciding to leave it at that. He heard the polishing of wood before he closed the door behind him.

'Dear Thanial, I think the time has come to discontinue your expense checks...' Thanial - despondent - read aloud the extracts from the letter from Rabastan Lestrange -

'... The thirty extra galleons, of course, was only due in the event that you succeeded in bringing Anton home. Naturally, I hope the trip has afforded you some pleasure despite the failure of its main objective you need no longer consider yourself obligated to us in any way...'

'You can't blame him.' Anton said from the sofa. 'You could hardly expect this to go on forever.'

'I thought you might write again. Now that we're brothers...'

'I can't, how can I, in all decency?' Anton said leaning back into the cushion. 'We've had a good run, haven't we?'

Thanial knew it was the right thing, but he still felt increasingly miserable and knew he couldn't keep up the mask much longer. 'What about Inverness? Can we stick to that plan at least?'

'I don't think so, Thanial. You can't stay on here without money. It's time we all moved on. Besides I'm sick of Hogsmeade. Especially now with everything - I really want to move to the West. I need to check out the Isle of Skye next week, find somewhere new to live and fly.' Anton clearly forced a smile. 'But it would be great, though, if you came with me. Our last trip before you join your housemates. There's a Quidditch festival - we could say goodbye in style. What do you think? A last trip?'

Thanial agreed.

Ginny said she didn't care to go with them to the Isle of Skye. She was in the middle of a 'streak' on her homework. Ginny studied in fits and starts, always cheerfully, though it seemed to Thanial that she was bogged down, as she called it, about seventy-five percent of the time, a condition that she always announced with a merry little laugh. Her papers must stink, Thanial thought. He had known great scholars. You didn't write an article on the seven uses of unicorn-hair with your little finger, lolling on a Quidditch-pitch half the day, wondering what to eat for dinner. But he was glad she was having a 'streak' at the time he and Anton wanted to go to the Isle of Skye.

'I'd appreciate it if you'd try to find that cologne, Anton,' she said. 'You know, the Inis I couldn't find in Edinburgh. Somewhere's bound to have it, they have so many shops with Irish stuff.'

Thanial could sec them spending a whole day looking for it somewhere, just as they had spent hours looking for it in Edinburgh one Saturday.

They took only one suitcase of Anton's between them, because they planned to be away only to nights and three days. Anton was in a slightly more cheerful mood, but the awful finality was still there, the feeling that this was the last trip they would make together anywhere. To Thanial, Anton's polite cheerfulness on the train was like the cheerfulness of a host who has loathed his guest and is afraid the guest realizes it, and who tries to make it up at the last minute. Thanial had never before in his life felt like an unwelcome, boring guest. On the train, Anton told Thanial about the Isle of Skye and the week he had spent there with Cedric Diggory when he first arrived in Scotland. The Isle of Skye's wizarding community was tiny, but it had a famous name as an international Quidditch-hub, Anton said, and people came across the Irish border to buy things there. It occurred to Thanial that Anton was trying to sell him on the place and might try to persuade him to stay there alone instead of coming back to Hogsmeade - Anton had lied to him before. Thanial began to feel an aversion to the place before they got there.

Then, almost as the train was sliding into the Dunvegan station, Anton said, 'By the way, Thanial - I hate to say this to you, if you're going to mind terribly, but I really would prefer to go to the Championship alone with Ginny. I think she'd prefer it, and after all I owe something to her, a pleasant holiday at least. You don't seem to be too enthusiastic about Quidditch.'

Thanial already knew it - he still went rigid and cold, but he tried not to move a muscle. Blaming it on Ginny!

'All right,' he said. 'Of course.' Nervously he looked at the map in his hands, looking desperately around the Isle of Skye for somewhere else to go, though Anton was already swinging their suitcase down from the rack. 'We're not far from the coast, are we?' Thanial asked.

'No.'

'And Belfast. I'd like to see Belfast as long as I'm this far, renting a Portkey perhaps. At least Belfast is Ireland,' he added on a reproachful note.

'Well, I suppose we could. You brought your passport, didn't you?' Thanial had brought his passport. They rented a Portkey in a small shop for Belfast, and arrived around eleven o'clock that night.

Thanial thought it beautiful - the sweep of curving harbor extended by little lights to long thin crescent tips, the elegant yet traditional-looking main boulevard along the water with its rows of trees, its row of expensive hotels. Ireland! It was more sedate than Scotland, and more chic, he could feel that even in the dark. They went to a hotel on the first street, the Merchant Hotel, which was chic enough but wouldn't cost them their shirts, Anton said, though Thanial would gladly have paid whatever it cost at the best hotel on the oceanfront. They left their suitcase at the hotel, and went to the Duke of York, which Anton said was the most fashionable bar in Belfast. As he had predicted, there were not many people in the bar, because there were not many people in Belfast at this time of year. Thanial proposed a second round of drinks but Anton declined.

They breakfasted at a café the next morning, then strolled down to the bank. They had their swimming trunks on under their trousers. The day was cool, but not impossibly cool for swimming when using heating-charms. They had been swimming in Hogsmeade on colder days. The seaside was practically empty - a few isolated pairs of people, a group of muggle men playing some kind of game up the embankment. The waves curved over and broke on the stones with a wintry violence. Now Thanial saw that the group of men were doing acrobatics.

'They must be professionals,' Thanial said. 'Wintersports... They're all in the same yellow G-strings.'

Thanial watched with interest as a human pyramid began building, feet braced on bulging thighs, hands gripping forearms. He could hear their 'Move!' and their 'Balance!'

'Look!' Thanial said. There goes the top!' He stood still to watch the smallest one, a boy of about seventeen, as he was boosted to the shoulders of the center man in the three top men. He stood poised, his arms open, as if receiving applause. 'Bravo!' Thanial shouted.

The boy smiled at Thanial before he leapt down, lithe as a tiger.

Thanial looked at Anton. Anton was looking at a couple of men sitting nearby on the beach.

'Ten thousand saw I at a glance, nodding their heads in sprightly dance,' Anton said sourly to Thanial.

It startled Thanial, then he felt that sharp thrust of shame, the same shame he had felt in Hogsmeade when Anton had said, Ginny thinks you are. All right, Thanial thought, the acrobats were fairies. Maybe Belfast was full of fairies. So what? Thanial's fists were clenched tight in his trousers pockets. He remembered Aunt Kate's taunt: Sissy! He's a sissy from the ground up. Probably just like his father! Anton stood with his arms folded, looking out at the ocean. Thanial deliberately kept himself from even glancing at the acrobats again, though they were certainly more amusing to watch than the ocean. 'Are you going in?' Thanial asked, boldly unbuttoning his shirt, though the water suddenly looked cold as hell.

'I don't think so,' Anton said. 'Why don't you stay here and watch the acrobats? I'm going back.' He turned and started back before Thanial could answer.

Thanial buttoned his clothes hastily, watching Anton as he walked diagonally away, away from the acrobats, though the next stairs up to the sidewalk were twice as far as the stairs nearer the acrobats. Damn him anyway, Thanial thought. Did he have to act so damned aloof and superior all the time? You'd think he'd never seen a pansy! Obvious what was the matter with Anton, all right! Why didn't he break down, just for once? What did he have that was so important to lose? A half-dozen taunts sprang to his mind as he ran after Anton. Then Anton glanced around at him coldly, with distaste, and the first taunt died in his mouth.

They left for the Isle of Skye that afternoon via the Portkey, just before three o'clock, so there would not be another day to pay on the hotel bill. Anton had proposed leaving by three, though it was Thanial who paid the 1,560euro bill, two galleons, and seven sickles, for one night. Thanial paid for the Portkey to the Isle of Skye, though Anton was loaded with euros. Anton had brought his monthly remittance cheque from Scotland and cashed it in muggle-money, figuring that he would come out better converting the euros back into galleons later, because of a sudden recent strengthening of the euro.

They took the Portkey back to the Isle of Skye in silence and boarded the train again. Anton said absolutely nothing on the train. Under a pretence of being sleepy, he folded his arms and closed his eyes. Thanial sat opposite him, staring at his bony, arrogant, handsome face, at his hands with the green ring and the gold signet ring. It crossed Thanial's mind to steal the green ring when he left. It would be easy: Anton took it off when he swam - even though he'd promised Ginny he didn't. Sometimes he took it off even when he showered at the house. He would do it the very last day, Thanial thought. Thanial stared at Anton's closed eyelids. A crazy emotion of hate, of affection, of impatience and frustration was swelling in him, hampering his breathing. He wanted to kill Anton. It was not the first time he had thought of it. Before, once or twice or three times, it had been an impulse caused by anger or disappointment, an impulse that vanished immediately and left him with a feeling of shame. Now he thought about it for an entire minute, two minutes, because he was leaving Anton for Slytherin anyway, and what was there to be ashamed of any more? He had failed with Anton, in every way. He hated Anton, because, however he looked at what had happened, his failing had not been his own fault, not due to anything he had done, but due to Anton's inhuman stubbornness. And his blatant rudeness! He had offered Anton friendship, companionship, and respect, everything he had to offer, and Anton had replied with ingratitude and now hostility. Anton was just shoving him out in the cold. If he killed him on this trip, Thanial thought, he could simply say that some accident had happened. He could - He had just thought of something brilliant: he could become Anton Lestrange himself. He could do everything that Anton did. He could go back to Hogsmeade first and collect Anton's things, tell Ginny any damned story, set up an apartment in Edinburgh or Manchester, receive Anton's cheque every month and forge Anton's signature on it. He could step right into Anton's shoes. He could have Mr. Lestrange, Sr, eating out of his hand. The danger of it, even the inevitable temporariness of it which he vaguely realised, only made him more enthusiastic. He began to think of how.

Falling. But Anton was such a good flyer. The cliffs. It would be easy to push Anton off some cliff when they took a walk, but he imagined Anton grabbing at him and pulling him off with him, and he tensed in his seat until his thighs ached and his nails cut red scallops in his thumbs. He would have to get the other ring off, too. He would have to charm his hair a little lighter. But he wouldn't live in a place, of course, where anybody who knew Anton lived. He had only to look enough like Anton to be able to use his passport. Well, he did. If he - Anton opened his eyes, looking right at him, and Thanial relaxed, slumped into the corner with his head back and his eyes shut, as quickly as if he had passed out.

'Thanial, are you okay?' Anton asked, shaking Thanial's knee.

'Okay,' Thanial said, smiling a little.

'Why do you do that thing - with your neck? On trains you always do that thing, it's so spooky.'

Thanial shrugged. He saw Anton sit back with an air of irritation, and Thanial knew why; because Anton had hated giving him even that much attention. Thanial smiled to himself, amused at his own quick reflex in pretending to collapse, because that had been the only way to keep Anton from seeing what must have been a very strange expression on his face.

The Isle of Skye. A remote wizard-village. Flowers. A main drag along the shore again, shops and stores and French and Irish and German tourists. An Inn, with flowers in the balconies. Where? In one of these little streets tonight? The town would be dark and possibly silent by four in the morning, if he could keep Anton up that long. In the water? It was slightly cloudy and freezing cold. Thanial racked his brain. It would be easy in the room, too, but how would he get rid of the body? The body had to disappear, absolutely. Transmutation? Deconstructing the body would be tiresome, but possible, and the best possible way to erase the trace. Where? Out of the village. That left only the air, and the air was Anton's element. There were brooms, two-persons and little kid-sized, that people could rent down at the seaside. He suddenly felt a wave of uneasiness wash over him. It was the shame. The awaited shame wrapped itself around his chest like tight iron-bands and he silently drew a long breath. Thanial turned his head to the window thinking, whilst taking in the mountains, that he wouldn't kill him after all - it was wrong and he'd regret it more than anything. He closed his eyes. He wouldn't do it. Nope. No way! And that was that! Thanial kept the mantra going for Merlin knows how long... until Anton finally called for his company.

Thanial followed Anton through a busy market of Quidditch-stalls and vendors lighted by colorful floating lanterns. They reached a restaurant overlooking a medium-sized pitch where players were already in the middle of a game. Very cool. Anton was captivated as they sat down and some girls passed by.

Anton smiled greedily. 'This is more like it. Didn't I tell you the Isle of Skye was crazy!'

Anton watched the game while their glasses were filled with champagne. Thanial smiled - had he rushed to conclusions? Anton looked very happy again. He had Anton all to himself. Thanial regarded Anton for a minute before speaking. 'To Hogsmeade and the happiest days of my life.'

Anton's glass met his. 'To Hogsmeade. You're cheerful tonight.'

'And you - I'm suddenly quite happy to be moving in with the Slytherins.'

'That's good.'

'I've got plans!'

Anton grinned. 'Thanial's plans.'

'Right. I'm always planning.'

Anton's attention was back on the game. 'Did I know you at Durmstrang, Thanial?' he looked back at Thanial. 'I didn't, did I?'

Thanial chuckled. 'Why are you asking all of a sudden?'

'No reason. Because you're leaving, I guess. I don't think you were there, were you?'

'Why?'

'I mean it as a compliment. You've got such great taste, talent, I don't know. Most of the thugs at Durmstrang had tasted everything and had no taste. Used to say, the cream of Europe: rich and thick. Cedric's the perfect example.'

'Then I'll take it as a compliment.'

Anton gaped. 'I knew it! I had a bet with Ginny!'

Thanial felt his brows furrow. 'Ha.'

'Do you even like flying - or was that something for my benefit?'

Thanial conceded without guile. 'I've gotten to like it. I've gotten to like everything about the way you live. It's one big love affair. If you knew my life back home in London...'

Anton was distracted by the beater who just hit an opposing player dead on. 'I'm thinking of giving up being seeker, what do you think about beaters?' Anton said, watching intently.

'What?'

'So cool.' Anton declared as he mimed holding a bat and flinging it.

Thanial couldn't quite credit that - it's superficiality.

'What do you say we rent some brooms, Anton?' Thanial asked, trying not to sound eager, though he did, and Anton looked at him, because he had not been eager about anything other than partying since they had arrived here.

'Great idea! That's how I found my place in Hogsmeade.' Anton was beaming. 'Took a broom out around the valley. The first place I liked, I got it.'

The next day they went down to the coast. There were many different kinds of brooms, about ten of them, chained up in a bundle, and the Scotsman was anxious for customers because it was a chilly and rather gloomy morning. Thanial looked out at the serrated mountains, which laid slightly hazy though not with a presage of rain. It was the kind of greyness that would not disappear all day, and there would be no sun. It was about ten-thirty - that lazy hour after breakfast, when the whole long Scottish morning lay before them.

'Well, all right. For an hour around cliffs,' Anton said, almost immediately jumping on a broom, and Thanial could see from his little smile that he had done it before, that he was looking forward to remembering, sentimentally, other mornings or some other morning here, perhaps with Cedric, or Ginny. Ginny's cologne bottle bulged the pocket of Anton's corduroy jacket. They had bought it a few minutes ago at a store very much like a muggle drugstore on the main drag.

The Scottish broom-keeper told them about the brooms, asking Anton if he knew how to fly it, and Anton said yes. And there was a similar broom, which Thanial saw and took for himself. They headed straight along the coastline, out from the town.

The brooms moved through the wind like a boat through water; plowing the waves like they sailed the water below.

'Cool!' Anton yelled, smiling. His hair was blowing.

Thanial felt exhilarated by the speed and looked to the right and left. A vertical cliff on one side, very much like Hogsmeade, and on the other a flatfish length of land fuzzing out in the mist that hovered over the water. Offhand he couldn't say in which direction it was better to go. That would be up to Anton.

'Do you know the land around here?' Thanial shouted over the roar of the wind.

'Nope!' Anton said cheerfully. He was enjoying the open air and relaxed his arms down to his sides.

'Is that thing hard to do?'

'Not a bit! Want to try it?'

Thanial hesitated. Anton was still ascending slowly up the serrated mountainside, the open sea below them. 'No, thanks.' He looked to the right and left. There was another wizard flying off to the left. 'Where're you going?' Thanial shouted.

'Does it matter?' Anton smiled.

No, it didn't.

Anton swerved suddenly to the right, so suddenly that Thanial had to duck and lean to keep him from crashing into him. A wall of dark rock rose up on Thanial's left, then gradually fell to show the green highlands. They were streaking across the empty fields now, towards nothing. Anton was trying the speed, smiling, his blue eyes smiling at the emptiness.

'On a broom it always feels so much faster than it is!' Anton yelled.

'Anton, slow down, come on!' Thanial grip was hard, his knuckles white.

Anton was ecstatic. 'I love it here! Gonna live here!'

Thanial nodded, letting his understanding smile speak for him. Actually, he was terrified. Merlin only knew how high they were now. If something happened to the brooms suddenly, there wasn't a chance in the world that they could survive the fall, or at least that he could. But neither was there a chance that anybody could see anything that they did here. Anton was swerving very slightly towards the right again, over the cliff and towards the long spit of fuzzy grey land, but he could have hit Anton, sprung on him, or kissed him, or thrown him from the broom, and nobody could have seen him at this distance. Thanial was sweating, hot under his clothes, cold on his forehead. He felt afraid, but it was not of the height, it was of Anton. He knew that he was going to do it, that he would not stop himself now, maybe couldn't stop himself, and that he might not succeed. No! Thanial suddenly thought. He needed to abandon those thoughts.

'I wanted to tell you my plan.' Thanial said and Anton slowed down.

'So tell me.'

Thanial swallowed. 'I thought I might come back after Hogwarts. After I get my degree, in the New Year. Under my own steam.'

Anton suddenly appeared tight. 'Really? To Scotland?'

'Of course. Let's say, for argument's sake, you were here - perhaps we could split the rent on a house - I'll get a job - or, better still, I could get a place in Edinburgh and when we're there we could be there and if we're here we could be here -'

Anton forced a laugh. 'Oh Merlin, I don't think so.'

'- you see, particularly with the Ginny problem, you can just blame me.'

'Ginny and I are getting married.'

Thanial almost stopped his broom, feeling appalled 'How?'

'How?'

'Yesterday you're ogling girls in the restaurant, today you're getting married. It's absurd.'

Anton slowed down above the cliffside and gave Thanial a serious stare. 'I love Ginny.'

'You love me and you're not marrying me.'

'Thanial, I don't love you,' he said coldly.

'No, no, it's not a threat, I've explained all of that.'

'I'm actually a little relieved you're going, to be honest.' Anton said as he descended to the grass. 'I think we've seen enough of each other for a while.'

Thanial stared at him as he followed. 'What?'

Anton made a graceful landing and turned. 'You can be a leech - you know this - and it's boring. You can be quite boring.'

Thanial descended in front of Anton, feeling like he was about to burst. 'The funny thing - I'm not pretending to be somebody else and you are. I'm absolutely honest with you. I've told you my feelings. But you, first of all I know there's something - that evening when we played chess, for instance, it was obvious -'

Anton appeared incredulous. 'What evening?'

'Sure -, Thanial spat, 'I know, that's too dangerous for you, fair enough, hey! we're brothers, fine, then you do this sordid thing with Ginny, fucking her under the benches while we all have to listen, which was excruciating, frankly, plus you follow your cock around like a - and now you're getting married! I'm bewildered, forgive me... you're lying to Ginny then getting married to her, you're knocking up Emma, you've got to play Seeker, you've got to play Beater, which is it, Anton, what do you really play?'

Anton, furiously, moved over and lurched towards Thanial. 'Who are you - some imposter, some third class mooch - who are you to tell me anything?' Anton administered tiny slaps to Thanial's face as punctuation to his tirade and Thanial stood frozen. 'Actually, I really really really don't want to be flying with you, I can't move without you moving, which is exactly how it feels and it gives me the creeps,' Anton slowly got on his broom again. 'I can't move without - "Anton, Anton, Anton" - like a little girl. You give me the -'

Thanial lifted his broom and came down with it on the top of Anton's head.

'Hey!' Anton yelled, scowling, sliding half off the broom. His dark brows lifted in groggy surprise.

'Shut up! Just shut up! Just shut up!' Thanial cried and brought the shaft down again, sharply, with wandless support, all his strength released like the snap of a rubber band.

'For Merlin's sake!' Anton mumbled, glowering, fierce, though the blue eyes wobbled, losing consciousness.

Thanial swung a left-handed blow with the rod against the side of Anton's head. The edge by the end cut a dull gash that filled with a line of blood as Thanial watched, and then suddenly split open like a peeling; like a fruit bursting. Thanial stood appalled. Anton was on the grass, twisted, twisting.

Thanial was in shock - shocked at himself and bent down. 'I'm so sorry Anton...' tears were starting to blur his vision, '... sorry. I'm sorry. I - I didn't mean to -'

Anton gave a groaning roar of protest that frightened Thanial with its loudness and its strength. Thanial hit him on the side of the neck, three times, chopping strokes with the edge of the brooms end, as if the broom were an axe and Anton's neck a tree. The wind blew, and blood splashed over his foot that was braced on a rock - the serrated edge was very close. He sliced at Anton's forehead, and a broad patch of blood came slowly where the end had scraped. For an instant Thanial was aware of tiring as he raised and swung, and still Anton's hands slid towards him on the grass. Anton's long legs straightened to thrust him forward. Thanial got a bayonet grip on the broom and plunged its end into Anton's side. Thanial, terrified, hit Anton again and again, the pole like a carpet-beater banging down flat, blood on the blade, blood on Thanial, until he was on his knees, heaving for breath, letting his arm drop, then realizing, disgusted, that he had let it rest in a pool of blood. He started to sob, sprawled there, sobbing, next to Anton, horrified by what he'd done.

Nobody was in sight. The sunshine finally penetrated the sky. The dewy grass swayed in the wind, gently, and the sun sparkled indifferently on the waves. Thanial laid by Anton on the grass, in the embrace he had always wanted.

Everything was calm.

The prostrate body had relaxed, limp and still. Thanial straightened, getting his breath back painfully. He looked around him. There were no people, nothing, except far, far away a little white spot creeping from right to left a speeding motor-boat heading for the shore.

He stopped and yanked at Anton's green ring. He pocketed it. The other ring was tighter, but it came off, over the bleeding scuffed knuckle. He looked in the trousers pockets. Euros and Sickles. He left them. He took a keychain with three keys. Then he picked up Anton's jacket and took Ginny's cologne package out of the pocket. Cigarettes and Anton's Hogsmeade Portkey, a pencil stub, the dragon-wallet and several little cards in the inside breast pocket. Thanial stuffed it all into his own corduroy jacket. The end of Anton's silvery wand was sticking out - how to deal with that? Thanial decided to wandlessly fish it out of the pocket, up and over, and into his chest pocket. He gave a mental sigh.

He looked at Anton. Was he dead? Thanial crouched down, careful not to let the wind push him over the cliff, watching Anton for a sign of life. He was afraid to touch him, afraid to touch his chest or his wrist to feel a pulse.

He would have to deconstruct the body. Thanial had a hard time swallowing that thought. He felt sick as he raised a hand over the body, palm facing down. It would be slow, very slow, and Thanial used the minutes to look all round him again. Would the Scotsman with the brooms be able to see him at this distance? Anton's legs started to fall in on themselves - as did his arms and chest. The body only glowed and smoked a little, slowly turning to pure carbon, ash to be scattered in the wind. Thanial yanked his hand outward, and the rest of the bodily ash flew down towards the sea. Thanial had even deconstructed the blood and grass - Anton's broom as well. Erase the trace, he thought as he glanced down the serrated cliffside - Anton was truly gone now.

He rested, faintly conscious of the slipperiness of Anton's blood under his fingers, a wetness of his sweat with the wind that ran cold over his back. He began to think before he could move, about the deconstructed broom that could not be returned, about the way back. About the direction.

About Anton's rings. He felt for them in his jacket pocket. They were still there, and after all what could have happened to them? He had a fit of coughing, and tears blurred his vision as he tried to look all around him to see if anyone was near, or coming towards him. He rubbed his eyes. There was none except the gay little motor-boat in the distance, still dashing around in wide arcs, oblivious of him. Thanial looked at his clothes. Could he charm it all out? But blood was hell to get out, he had always heard - blood had strong magical properties in itself. He had been going to return the broom, and say, if he were asked by the broom-keeper where his friend was, that he would come back at some other point. Now that couldn't be.

Thanial got on his broom cautiously. It picked him up and he was afraid even of that, but the broom seemed more human and manageable than the heights, and therefore less frightening. He headed obliquely towards the shore, north of the village.

Maybe he could find some place, some little deserted cove in the shore where he could hide the broom and get out. But if they found the broom? The problem seemed immense. He tried to reason himself back to coolness. His mind seemed blocked as to how to get rid of the broom. Deconstruction... He sighed out loud. He mind was truly clouded by shock still.

Now he could see trees, a dry empty-looking stretch of grainy beach and the green fuzz of a field of pine-trees. Thanial cruised slowly to right and left of the place, looking for people. There were none, He headed in for the shallow, short beach. He got off cautiously onto the sand, threw the broom, then his jacket, his boots, and Ginny's cologne box to the beach. The little cove where he was - not more than fifteen feet wide - gave him a feeling of safety and privacy. There was not a sign anywhere that a human foot had ever touched the place. Then he lay down for a while, face down on the sand. He began to plan his return to the inn, and his story, and his next moves: leaving the Isle of Skye before nightfall, getting back to Hogsmeade. And the story there.


	12. Planning

At sundown, just the hour when the Scotsmen and everybody else in the village had gathered at the sidewalk tables of the cafes, freshly showered and warmly dressed, staring at everybody and everything that passed by, eager for whatever entertainment the town could offer after the festival, Thanial walked into the village wearing only his pants and boots and shirt, and carrying his slightly bloodstained jacket under his arm. He walked with a languid casualness because he was exhausted, though he kept his head up for the benefit of the hundreds of people who stared at him as he walked past the cafes, the only route to his beachfront inn. He had fortified himself with five espressos full of sugar and three brandies at a bar on the road just outside the village. Now he was playing the role of an athletic young man who had spent the afternoon in and out of the sky because it was his peculiar taste, being a good flyer and impervious to cold, to fly until late afternoon on a winter day. He made it to the inn, collected the key at the desk, went up to his room and collapsed on the bed. He would allow himself an hour to rest, he thought, but he must not fall asleep lest he sleeps longer. He rested, and when he felt himself falling asleep, got up and went to the basin and wet his face, took a wet towel back to his bed to waggle in his hand to keep from falling asleep.

Finally he got up and went to work on the blood smear on one arm of his corduroy jacket. Charming it away had proved futile, so he scrubbed it over and over with soap and a nailbrush, got tired and stopped for a while to pack the suitcase. He packed Anton's things just as Anton had always packed them, toothpaste and toothbrush in the back left pocket. Then he went back to finish the jacket-sleeve. It probably had too much blood on it ever to be worn again, and he would have to get rid of it, but he could wear it under Anton's overcloak, because it was long enough to hide the jacket and almost identical in size as his own at home.

Thanial had had wardrobe copied from Anton's, and it had been made by the same tailor in Edinburgh. He levitated Anton's wand carefully into the suitcase. Then he went down with the suitcase and asked for his bill.

The man behind the desk asked where his friend was, and Thanial said he was meeting him at the railroad station. The clerk was pleasant and smiling, and wished Thanial 'A good day".

Thanial stopped in at a restaurant two streets away and forced himself to eat a bowl of beef stew for the strength it would give him. He kept an eye out for the Scotsman who owned the brooms. The main thing, he thought, was to leave the Isle of Skye tonight, and use Anton's Portkey, if there was no train or bus.

There was a train south at ten twenty-four, Thanial learned at the railroad station. A sleeper. Wake up tomorrow in Edinburgh, and use the Portkey. It seemed absurdly simple and easy suddenly, and in a burst of self-assurance he thought of going to 'Ireland for a few days.'

'Can you wait a moment,' he said to the clerk who was ready to hand him his ticket. Thanial walked around his suitcase, thinking of Ireland. Overnight. Just to see it, for two days, for instance. It wouldn't matter whether he told Ginny or not. He decided abruptly against Ireland. He wouldn't be able to relax. He needed to keep the charade up at Hogwarts - he had his homework and classes - In truth he was too eager to get to Hogsmeade and see about Anton's belongings.

The white, taut sheets of his berth on the train seemed the most wonderful luxury he had ever known. He caressed them with his hands before he turned the light out. And the clean blue-grey blankets, the spanking efficiency of the simple little black net over his head - Thanial had an ecstatic moment when he thought of all the pleasures that lay before him now with Anton's money, other beds, tables, trips, books, suitcases, shirts, years of freedom, years of pleasure. Then he turned the light out and put his head down and almost at once fell asleep, happy, content, and utterly confident, as he had never been before in his life.

In Edinburgh he stopped in the men's room of the railway station and removed Anton's toothbrush and hairbrush from the suitcase, and rolled them up in Anton's raincoat together with his own blood spotted jacket. He took the bundle across the street from the station and pressed it into a huge burlap of garbage that leaned against an alley wall. Then he breakfasted on caffe latte and a sweet roll at a cafe in Burghtrix Terrace, and used the Portkey for Hogsmeade.

He appeared almost squarely in front of Ginny, who was in her woolen jacket and the furry boots she always wore outside.

He looked at her until she looked at him. She gasped.

'Hello Ginny.'

'Thanial, you startled me!' She took a breath and smiled. 'You're back.'

'How are you? Sorry. Is your homework coming along?

'Yes - I'm on a good streak, thanks.'

'I was just looking at you - so quiet.'

'Where's Anton?' she asked.

'He's in Edinburgh.' Thanial smiled easily, absolutely prepared. 'He's staying down there for a few days. I came up to get some of his stuff to take up to him.'

'Is he staying with somebody?'

'No, just in a hotel.'

Ginny frowned at him. 'Ha. Did he say why?'

'I don't know. I don't understand Anton, Ginny, so your guess is as good as mine.'

'What does that mean?'

'Well, one day I'm invited to the championship, the next day I'm not, one day we're all one family, the next day he wants to be alone. You tell me.'

'Is that what he said - he wanted to be alone?'

Thanial fixed an apologetic smile. 'He was thinking of you, Ginny.'

Ginny eyes flared up in alarm. 'How long's he staying for?'

'Search me. I guess we're abandoned.' With another smile that was half a goodbye, Thanial started up the street with his suitcase. A moment later he heard Ginny's heavy boots trotting after him on the snow. Thanial waited. 'How's everything been in our home sweet home?' he asked.

'Oh, dull. As usual.' Ginny smiled. She was ill at ease with him. But she followed him into the house - the gate was unlocked, and Thanial got the big iron key to the balcony door from its usual place, back of a rotting wooden tub that held earth and a half-dead shrub - and they went on to the balcony together and inside the living-room. The table had been moved a little.

There was a book on the armchair. Ginny had been here since they left, Thanial thought. He had been gone only three days and nights: It seemed to him that he had been away for a month.

'How's Skippy?' Thanial asked brightly, opening the refrigerator, getting out an ice tray. Skippy was a stray dog Ginny had acquired a few days ago, an ugly black-and-white bastard that Ginny pampered and fed like a doting old maid.

'He went off. I didn't expect him to stay.'

'Oh.'

'You look like you've had a good time,' Ginny said, a little wistfully.

'We did.' Thanial smiled. 'Can I fix you a drink?'

'No, thanks. But really Thanial - How long do you think Anton's going to be away?'

'Well -' Thanial frowned thoughtfully. 'I don't really know. He says he wants to see a lot of workshops down there. I think he's just enjoying a change of scene.' Thanial poured himself a generous gin and added soda and a lemon slice. 'I suppose he'll be back in a week - you'll see him at school. By the way!' Thanial reached for the suitcase, and took out the box of cologne. He had removed the shop's wrapping paper, because it had had blood smears on it. 'Your Inis. We got it in Wallclaw Village.'

'Oh, thanks - very much, he knows I love this,' Ginny took it, smiling, and began to open it, carefully, dreamily. 'Although why it couldn't have waited...'

Thanial strolled tensely out on the balcony with his drink, not saying a word to Ginny, waiting for her to go somewhere.

'Well -' Ginny said finally, coming out on the balcony. 'How long are you staying?'

'Where.'

'Here.'

'Just overnight. I'll be settling down in the dungeons tomorrow and then go down to Edinburgh. Probably in the afternoon,' he added, because he couldn't get the mail tomorrow until perhaps after two.

'I don't suppose I'll see you again, unless me meet at school,' Ginny said with an effort at friendliness. 'Have a good time in case I don't see you. And if I don't see him, please tell Anton to send a letter. What hotel is he staying at?'

'Oh - uh - what's the name of it? Near the Ruins?'

'The Golden Boggart?'

'That's it. But I think he said to use the Burghtrix Express as an owling address.' She wouldn't try to go to Anton, Thanial thought. And he could be at the hotel tomorrow to pick up a letter if she wrote. 'I'll probably take the carriage tomorrow morning,' Thanial said.

'All right. Thanks for the cologne.'

'Don't mention it!'

She walked down the path to the iron gate, and out.

Thanial picked up the suitcase and ran upstairs to Anton's bedroom. He flicked his hand and Anton's top drawer slid out: letters, two address books, a couple of little notebooks, a watchchain, loose keys, and some kind of insurance policy. He slid the other drawers out, one by one, and left them open. Shirts, shorts, folded sweaters and disordered socks. In the corner of the room a sloppy mountain of portfolios and old paper-assingments. There was a lot to be done. Thanial took off all his clothes, ran downstairs naked and took a quick, warm shower, then put on Anton's old white duck trousers that were hanging on a nail in the closet.

He started with the top drawer, for two reasons: the recent letters were important in case there were current situations that had to be taken care of immediately and also because, in case Ginny happened to come back this afternoon, it wouldn't look as if he were dismantling the entire house so soon. But at least he could begin, even this afternoon, packing Anton's biggest suitcase with his best clothes, Thanial thought.

Thanial was still pottering about the house at midnight. Anton's suitcases were packed, and now he was assessing how much the house furnishings were worth, what he would bequeath to Ginny, and how he would dispose of the rest. Ginny could have the damned refrigerator. That ought to please her. The heavy carved chest in the foyer, which Anton used for his metals, ought to be worth several galleons, Thanial thought. Anton had said it was four hundred years old and charmed to hold more, when Thanial had asked him about it. Five hundred was more accurate, Thanial assumed. He intended to speak to Madam Rosmerta, the assistant manager of the Three Broomsticks, and ask her to act as agent for the sale of the house and the furniture. And the brooms, too. Anton had told him that Madam Rosmerta did jobs like that for residents of the village.

He had wanted to take all of Anton's possessions straight away to Edinburgh, but in view of what Ginny might think about his taking so much for presumably such a short time, he decided it would be better to pretend that Anton had later made a decision to move to Edinburgh and discontinue his studies at Hogwarts.

Accordingly, Thanial went down to the Public Owls & Post around three the next afternoon after classes, claimed one interesting letter for Anton from a friend in London and nothing for himself, but as he walked slowly back to the house again he imagined that he was reading a letter from Anton. He imagined the exact words, so that he could quote them to Ginny, if he had to, and he even made himself feel the slight surprise he would have felt at Anton's change of mind.

As soon as he got home he began packing Anton's best books and best valuables into the big framed box he had gotten from Mr. Flume at Honeydukes on the way up the street. He worked calmly and methodically, expecting Ginny to drop in at any minute, but it was after four before she came.

'Still here?' she asked as she came into Anton's room.

'Yes. I had a letter from Anton today. He's decided he's going to move to Edinburgh.' Thanial straightened up and smiled a little, as if it were a surprise to him, too. 'He wants me to pick up all his things, all I can handle.'

'Move to Edinburgh? For how long?'

'I don't know. The rest of the winter apparently, anyway.' Thanial went on tying books.

'He's not coming back all winter?' Ginny's voice sounded lost already.

'No. He said he might even sell the house. He said he hadn't decided yet.'

'Gosh! - What happened?'

Thanial shrugged. 'He apparently wants to spend the winter in Edinburgh. He said he was going to write to you. I thought you might have got a letter this afternoon, too.'

'No. I didn't even see him at school.'

Silence. Thanial kept on working. It occurred to him that he hadn't packed up his own things at all. He hadn't even been into his room.

'He's still going to the championship, isn't he?' Ginny asked.

'No, he's not. He said he was going to write to Cedric and cancel it. But that shouldn't prevent your going.' Thanial watched her. 'By the way, Anton said he wants you to take the refrigerator back to Devon if you want. You can probably get somebody to help you move it.'

The present of the refrigerator had no effect at all on Ginny's stunned face. Thanial knew she was wondering whether he was going to live with Anton or not, and that she was probably concluding, because of his cheerful manner, that he was going to live with him. Thanial felt the question creeping up to her lips -she was as transparent as a child to him - then she asked: 'Are you going to stay with him in Edinburgh?'

'Maybe for a while. I'll help him get settled. I want to move into the dungeons this month, then I suppose in half a year I'll be going back to London.'

Ginny looked crestfallen. Thanial knew she was imagining the lonely weeks ahead - even if Anton did make periodic little visits to Hogsmeade to see her - the empty Sunday mornings, the lonely dinners. 'What's he going to do about Christmas? Do you think he wants to have it here or in Edinburgh?'

Thanial said with a trace of irritation, 'Well, I don't think here. I have the feeling he wants to be alone.'

Now she was shocked to silence, shocked and hurt. Wait till she got the letter he was going to write from Edinburgh, Thanial thought. He'd be gentle with her, of course, as gentle as Anton, but there would be no mistaking that Anton didn't want to see her again.

A few minutes later, Ginny stood up and said good-bye in an absent-minded way. Thanial suddenly felt that she might be going to owl Anton today. Or maybe even go down to Edinburgh. But what if she did? Anton could have changed his hotel. And there were enough hotels in Burghtrix Terrace to keep her busy for days, even if she came to Edinburgh to find him. When she didn't find him, by owl or by coming to Edinburgh, she would suppose that he had gone to Ireland or to some other city with Barthanial Botts.

Thanial glanced over the Daily Prophets from Burghtrix Terrace for an item about a scuttled brooms having been stolen near Wallclaw Village. Thievery in Wallclaw, the caption would probably say. And they would make a great to-do over the bloodstains, if the bloodstains were still there - he was quite sure he transmuted them. It was the kind of thing the Scottish newspapers loved to write up in their melodramatic journalese: 'James Welleby, a young muggle of the Isle of Skye, yesterday at three o'clock in the afternoon made a most terrible discovery on the northern cliffs. An ashen area, its dirt covered with horrible bloodstains. The scene screams dark magic...' But Thanial did not see anything in the paper. Nor had there been anything yesterday. It might take months for anything to be found, he thought. It might likely never be found. And if they did find it, how could they know that Antonio Lestrange and Barthanial Botts had taken the brooms out together? They had not told their names to the Scottish broom-keeper at Wallclaw. The broom-keeper had given them only a little orange ticket which Thanial had had in his pocket, and had later found and destroyed.

Thanial left Hogsmeade by the floo around six o'clock, after an espresso at Hog's Head, where he said good-bye to Christian, Oliver, and several other village acquaintances of his and Anton's. To all of them he told the same story, that Mister Lestrange was staying in Edinburgh for the winter, and that he sent his greetings until he saw them again. Thanial said that undoubtedly Anton would be up for a visit before long.

He had had Anton's books and valuables crated by the Burghtrix Express that afternoon, and the boxes sent to Edinburgh along with Anton's trunk and two heavier suitcases, to be claimed in Edinburgh by Antonio Lestrange. Thanial took his own two suitcases and one other of Anton's in the floo with him. He had spoken to Madam Rosmerta at the Three Broomsticks, and had said that there was a possibility that Mister Lestrange would want to sell his house and furniture, and could Madame Rosmerta handle it? Madame Rosmerta had said she would be glad to. Thanial had also spoken to Darren, from the Quidditch-shop, and asked him to be on the lookout for someone who might want to buy Anton's brooms, because there was a good chance that Mister Lestrange would want to get rid of them. Thanial said that Mister Lestrange would let them go for twenty galleons, which was such a bargain for brooms that worked chaser-speed, Darren thought he could sell them in a matter of weeks.

As Thanial arrived in Burghtrix Terrace he composed the letter to Ginny so carefully that he memorized it in the process, and when he got to the Golden Boggart he sat down with Anton's beautiful quills, which he had brought in one of Anton's suitcases, and wrote the letter straight off.

Edinburgh  
28 November, 97 - Dear Ginny,

I've decided to take an apartment in Edinburgh for the winter, just to have a change of scene and get away from old Hogsmeade for a while. I feel a terrific urge to be by myself, and that is also why I won't proceed with my education for the time being. I'm sorry it was so sudden and that I didn't get a chance to say good-bye, but actually I'm not far away, and I hope I'll be seeing you now and then. I just didn't feel like going to pack my stuff, so I threw the burden on Thanial.

As to us, it can't harm anything and possibly may improve everything if we don't see each other for a while. I had a terrible feeling I was boring you, though you weren't boring me, and please don't think I am running away from anything. On the contrary, Edinburgh should bring me closer to reality. Hogsmeade certainly didn't. Part of my discontent was you. My going away doesn't solve anything, of course, but it will help me to discover how I really feel about you. For this reason, I prefer not to see you for a while, honey, and I hope you'll understand. If you don't - well, you don't, and that's the risk I run. When winter-break comes I may go Ireland for a couple of weeks with Thanial, as he's dying to go. That is, unless I start working right away. Met a broomcrafter named Thormann Swift whose work I like very much, an old fellow without much money who seems to be very glad to have me as a student if I pay him a little bit. I am going to work with him in his studio.

The city looks marvelous with its fountains going all night and everybody up all night, contrary to old Hogsmeade. You were on the wrong track about Thanial. He's going to move in with the Slytherins soon and I don't care when, though he's really not a bad guy and I don't dislike him. He has nothing to do with us, anyway, and I hope you realize that.

Write me c/o Burghtrix Express, Edinburgh until I know where I am. Shall let you know when I find an apartment. Meanwhile keep the home fires burning, the refrigerators working and your studying also. I'm terribly sorry about Xmas, honey, but I don't think I should see you that soon, and you can hate me or not for that.

All my love,  
Anton

Thanial had kept his cap on since entering the hotel, and he had given Anton's passport in at the desk instead of his own, though hotels, he had noticed, never looked at the passport photo, only copied the passport number which was on the front cover. He had signed the register with Anton's hasty and rather flamboyant signature with the big looping capitals A and L. When he went out to owl the letter he walked to a potions-shop several streets away and bought a few items of camouflage that he thought he might need. He had fun with the Scottish salesgirl, making her think that he was buying them for his fiancée who had used up her beautifying-kit, and who was indisposed in the hotel with the usual upset stomach.

He spent that evening practicing Anton's signature for the bank cheques - he would need magic-repellent gloves to handle Anton's wand as well; that was needed for identification when cashing cheques. Anton's monthly remittance was going to arrive from London in less than ten days.


	13. Letters in Transit

She was ashen, like she might have been weeping, as she bumped into Thanial in an empty corridor, just outside the charms classroom.

He kept his face neutral as Ginny's lips slowly parted, as if she'd been unwilling to speak with him, but felt obligated.

'There came an owl from Anton. You realize it's more than a few days? He's thinking of dropping out of Hogwarts entirely.' She slumped tiredly against the wall, and the books that had nested under her arm fell everywhere.

Thanial dropped to the floor and started to clear them up and when he'd returned them she showed the letter to him.

His eyebrows rose in controlled surprise as he read.

'The thing is,' Ginny said slowly, 'the night before he left, we talked about moving, together, going West - and I suppose I put some pressure on him, about getting married, I just might have scared him off. There's a side to him, when our heads are on the pillow, I know no-one else sees it, which is really tender.' Thanial glanced up at her and now she stared determinedly. 'I think I should come with you to Edinburgh and just confront him.'

Thanial gave back the letter silently and Ginny's strong facade fell in a loss of confidence.

'He hates being confronted.' Ginny finally said.

'I think you're right.' Thanial agreed, and that was that. They had a brief goodbye before he stepped swiftly up through the castle toward his Transfigurations-class, which he certainly wouldn't arrive to late because of Ginny.

He moved the next day to the Hotel Burghtrix, a moderately priced hotel near the central shopping-street, because the Golden Boggart was a trifle flashy, he thought, the kind of hotel that was patronised by visiting politicians, and where Cedric Diggory, or people like him who knew Anton, might choose to stay if they came to Edinburgh.

Thanial held imaginary conversations with Ginny and Draco and Cedric in his hotel room. Ginny was the most likely to come to Edinburgh, he thought. He spoke to her as Anton, if he imagined it through a howler he could owl her, and as Thanial, if he imagined her face to face with him. She might, for instance, pop up to Edinburgh and find his hotel and insist on coming up to his room, in which case he would have to remove Anton's rings and change his clothing.

'I don't know,' he would say to her in Thanial's voice. 'You low how he is - likes to feel he's getting away from everything, he said I could use his hotel room for a few days, because mine happens to be so badly heated... Oh, he'll be back in a couple of days, or there'll be an owl from him saying he's all right, he went to some little town with Thormann to look at some rare brooms.'

('But you don't know whether he went north or south?')

'I really don't. I guess south. But what good does that do us?'

('It's just my bad luck to miss him, isn't it? Why couldn't he at least have said where he was going?')

'I know. I asked him, too. Looked the room over for a map or anything else that might have shown where he was going. He just owled me three days ago and said I could use his room if I cared to.'

It was a good idea to practice jumping into his own character again, because the time might come when he would need to in a matter of seconds, and it was strangely easy to forget the exact timbre of Barthanial Botts' voice. He conversed with Ginny until the sound of his own voice in his ears was exactly the same as he remembered it.

But mostly he was Anton, discoursing in a low tone with Cedric and Ginny, and by howler with Anton's mother, and with Draco, and with a stranger at a dinner party, conversing in English and Gaelic, with Anton's portable radio turned on so that if a hotel employee passed by in the hall and happened to know that Mr. Lestrange was alone he would not think him an eccentric. Sometimes, if the song on the wireless was one that Thanial liked, he merely danced by himself, but he danced as Anton would have with a girl - he had seen Anton once on Hogs Head's balcony, dancing with Ginny, and also in the house in Hogsmeade - in long strides yet rather stiffly, not what could be called exactly good dancing. Every moment to Thanial was a pleasure, alone in his room or walking the streets of Edinburgh or Burghtrix Terrace, when he combined sightseeing with looking around for an apartment. It was impossible ever to be lonely or bored, he thought, so long as he was Antonio Lestrange.

They greeted him as Mister Lestrange at the Burghtrix Express, where he called for his mail. Ginny's first letter said:

Anton,

Well, it was a bit of a surprise. I wonder what came over you so suddenly in Edinburgh or Wallclaw village or wherever it was? Thanial was most mysterious except to say that he would be staying with you. I'll believe he's leaving for Slytherin when I see it. At the risk of sticking my neck out, old boy, may I say that I don't like that guy? From my point of view or anybody else's he is using you for what you are worth. If you want to make some changes for your own good, for gosh sakes get him away from you. All right, he may not be queer. He's just a nothing, which is worse. He isn't normal enough to have any kind of sex life, if you know what I mean. However I'm not interested in Thanial but in you. Yes, I can bear the few weeks without you, honey, and even Christmas, though I prefer not to think of Christmas. I prefer not to think about you and - as you said - let the feelings come or not. But it's impossible not to think of you here because every inch of the village is haunted with you as far as I'm concerned, and in this house, everywhere I look there is some sign of you, the hedge we planted, the fence we started repairing and never finished, the books I borrowed from you and never returned. And your chair at the table, that's the worst.

To continue with the neck-sticking, I don't say that Thanial is going to do anything actively bad to you, but I know that he has a subtly bad influence on you. You act vaguely ashamed of being around him when you are around him, do you know that? Did you ever try to analyze it? I thought you were beginning to realize all this in the last few weeks, but now you're with him again and frankly, dear boy, I don't know what to make of it. If you really 'don't care when' he takes off for the dorms, for Merlin's sake send him packing! He'll never help you or anybody else to get straightened out about anything. In fact it's greatly to his interest to keep you muddled and string you along and your father too.

Thanks loads for the cologne, honey. I'll save it - or most of it - for when I see you next. I haven't got the refrigerator over to my family yet. I guess I'm to move back into the Gryffindor dorms, and I certainly can bring it with me. You can have it, of course, any time you want it back.

Maybe Thanial told you that Skippy skipped out. Should I capture a cat and tie a string around its neck? I have to get to work on charming the library wall right away before it mildews completely and collapses on me. Wish you were here, honey - of course.

Lots of love and write,

XX Ginny  
c/o Burghtrix Express

* * *

Burghtrix Terrace, Edinburgh  
12 Dec. 19-

Dear Mother and Dad,

I'm in Edinburgh looking for an apartment, though I haven't found exactly what I want yet. Apartments here are either too big or too small, and if too big you have to shut off every room but one in winter in order to heat it properly anyway. I'm trying to get a medium-sized, medium-priced place that I can heat completely without spending a fortune for it.

Sorry I've been so bad about letters lately. I hope to do better with the quieter life I'm leading here. I felt I needed a change from Hogsmeade - as you've both been saying for a long time - so I've moved bag and baggage and may even sell the house and the brooms. I have also decided to suspend my Newt-year at Hogwarts and I probably won't take part in the upcoming semester. Don't worry too much because I've met a wonderful craftsman called Thormann Swift who is willing to give me instruction in his studio. I'm going to work like blazes for a few months and see what happens. A kind of trial period. I realize this doesn't interest you, Dad, but since you're always asking how I spend my time, this is how. 'I'll be leading a very quiet, studious life until next summer.'

Apropos of that, could you send me the latest folders from LestrangeParkinson? I like to keep up with what you're doing, too, and it's been a long time since I've seen anything.

Mother, I hope you haven't gone to great trouble for my Christmas. I don't really need anything I can think of. How are you feeling? Are you able to get out very much? To the theatre, etc.? How is Uncle Edward now? Send him my regards and keep me posted.

With love,  
Anton

Thanial read it over, decided there were probably too many commas, and rewrote it patiently and signed it. He had once seen a half-finished letter of Anton's to his parents on Anton's desk, and he knew Anton's general style. He knew that Anton had never taken more than ten minutes writing any letter. If this letter was different, Thanial thought, it could be different only in being a little more personal and enthusiastic than usual. He felt rather pleased with the letter when he read it over for the second time. Uncle Edward was a brother of Mrs. Lestrange, who was ill in a French hospital with some kind of curse, Thanial had learned from the latest letter to Anton from his mother.

Thanial felt energized and adventurous and a few days later when the weekend arrived, and by that the end of fall term, he was off to Paris by International Portkey - which had been expensive, but he hadn't cared. He had owled London before he left Edinburgh: no letters or appointments for Antonio Lestrange. He portkeyed at Orly at five in the afternoon. The passport inspector stamped his passport after only a quick glance at him, though Thanial had cut his hair up to shoulder-length, darkened it slightly with a peroxide potion and had charmed some waves into it, aided by hair oil, and for the inspector's benefit he had put on the rather tense, rather frowning expression of Anton's passport photograph. The use of polyjuice had been out of the question, Thanial had supposed after some internal debate about legality, tracing, and dark-market quantity. He'd also endured an afternoon of severe pain in his eyes after using a few drops of an elixir-treatment that would cure his poor eyesight - pain _was_ price you had to pay for treating any kind of illness like that, and when the pain finally had subsided he'd no use for his glasses anymore.

Thanial checked in at the Hotel du Quai Voltaire, which had been recommended to him by some Scotsman with whom he had struck up an acquaintance at a Burghtrix cafe, as being conveniently located and not too full of muggles. Then he went out for a stroll in the raw, foggy December evening. He walked with his head up and a smile on his face. It was the atmosphere of the city that he loved but never seen, the atmosphere that he had always heard about, crooked streets, grey-fronted houses with skylights, noisy car horns, and everywhere public urinals and columns with brightly coloured theatre notices on them. He wanted to let the atmosphere seep in slowly, perhaps for several days, before he visited the Louvre or went up in the Eiffel Tower or anything like that. He bought a bicycle, sat down at a table in the Flore, and ordered a fine menthe à l'eau, because Anton had once said that fine menthe à l'eau was his usual drink in France. Thanial's French was limited, but so was Anton's, Thanial knew. Some interesting people stared at him through the glass-enclosed front of the cafe, but no one came in to speak to him. Thanial as prepared for someone to get up from one of the tables at any moment, and come over and say, 'Anton Lestrange! Is it really you?'

He had done so little artificially to change his appearance, but his very expression, Thanial thought, was like Anton's now. He wore a smile that was dangerously welcoming to a stranger, a smile more fit to greet an old friend or a lover. It was Anton's best and most typical smile when he was in a good humor. Thanial was in a good humor. It was Paris. Wonderful to sit in a famous cafe, and to think of tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow being Anton Lestrange! The cuff links, the white silk shirts, even the old clothes - the worn brown belt with the brass buckle, the old brown dragon-leather shoes, the kind advertised in Prophet as lasting a lifetime, the old mustard-coloured coat sweater with the sagging pockets, they were all his and he loved them all. And the silver quills with little gold initials. And the pouch, a well-worn Mokeskin pouch from Diagon Alley, enchanted which allowed it to have much greater carrying capacity than any Muggle pouch of comparable size - they were expensive, Thanial knew. And there was plenty of money to go in it.

By the next afternoon he had been invited to a party in the Avenue Kleber by some wizardfolk - a French girl and an American young man - with whom he had started a conversation in a large cafe-restaurant on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, but invisibly hidden in plain sight from muggles. The party consisted of thirty or forty people, most of them middle-aged, standing around rather frigidly in a huge, chilly, formal apartment. In Europe, Thanial gathered, inadequate heating was a hallmark of chic in winter, like the iceless martini in summer. He had moved to a more expensive hotel in Burghtrix, finally, in order to be warmer, and had found that the more expensive hotel was even colder. In a gloomy, old-fashioned way the house was chic, Thanial supposed. There were a butler and a maid, a vast table of pates en croute, sliced turkey, and petits fours, and quantities of champagne, although the upholstery of the sofa and the long drapes at the windows were threadbare and rotting with age, and he had seen mouseholes in the hall by the elevator. At least half a dozen of the guests he had been presented to were counts and countesses. An American informed Thanial that the young man and the girl who had invited him were going to be married, and that her parents were not enthusiastic. There was an atmosphere of strain in the big room, and Thanial made an effort to be as pleasant as possible to everyone, even the severe-looking French people to whom he could say little more than 'C'est très agréable, n'est-ce pas?' He did his very best, and won at least a smile from the French girl who had invited him. He considered himself lucky to be there. How many British alone in Paris could get themselves invited to a French home after only a week or so in the city? The French were especially slow in inviting strangers to their homes, Thanial had always heard. Not a single one of the Americans seemed to know his name. Thanial felt completely comfortable, as he had never felt before at any party that he could remember. He behaved as he had always wanted to behave at a party. This was the clean slate he had thought about before coming over from Scotland, This was the real annihilation of his past and of himself, Barthanial Botts, who was made up of that past, and his rebirth as a completely new person. One Frenchwoman and two of the Americans invited him to parties, but Thanial declined with the same reply to all of them: 'Thank you very much, but I'm leaving Paris tomorrow.'

It wouldn't do to become too friendly with any of these, Thanial thought. One of them might know somebody who knew Anton very well, someone who might be at the next party. The Lestrange name did ring with a certain foreboding in Britain, and he had yet to experience that in Paris - he wouldn't take the chance.

At eleven-fifteen, when he said good-bye to his hostess and to her parents, they looked very sorry to see him go. But he wanted to be at Notre Dame by midnight. It was Christmas Eve.

The girl's mother asked his name again.

'Monsieur Lestrange,' the girl repeated for her. 'Anton Lestrange. Correct?'

'Correct,' Thanial said, smiling.

Just as he reached the downstairs hall he remembered Cedric Diggory's championship party. January second. Nearly a week away! He had meant to write to Cedric to say that he wasn't coming. Would Ginny go, he wondered? Cedric would think it very strange that he hadn't written to say he wasn't coming, and Thanial hoped Ginny had told Cedric, at least. He must write Cedric at once. There was an Aberdeen address for Cedric in Anton's address book. It was a slip, but nothing serious, Thanial thought. He just mustn't let such a thing happen again.

He walked out into the darkness and turned in the direction of the illuminated, bone-white Arc de Triomphe. It was strange to feel so alone, and yet so much a part of things, as he had felt at the party. He felt it again, standing on the outskirts of the crowd that filled the square in front of Notre Dame. There was such a crowd he couldn't possibly have gone into the cathedral, but the amplifiers carried the music clearly to all parts of the square. French Christmas carols whose names he didn't know. 'Silent Night'. A solemn carol, and then a lively, babbling one. The chanting of male voices. Frenchmen near him removed their hats. Thanial removed his. He stood tall, straight, sober-faced, yet ready to smile if anyone had addressed him. He felt as he had felt before traveling, only more intensely, full of good will, a gentleman, with nothing in his past to blemish his character. He was Anton, goodnatured, naive Anton, with a smile for everyone and a thousand francs for anyone who asked him. An old man did ask him for money as Anton was leaving the cathedral square, and he gave him a crisp blue thousand-franc bill. The old man's face exploded in a smile, and he tipped his hat.

Thanial felt a little hungry, though he rather liked the idea of going to bed hungry tonight. He would spend an hour or so with his research-notes from the forbidden section, he thought, then go to bed. Then he remembered that he had decided to try to gain about five pounds, because Anton's clothes were just a trifle loose on him and Anton looked heavier than he in the face, so he stopped at a bar-tabac and ordered a ham sandwich on long crusty bread and a glass of hot milk, because a man next to him at the counter was drinking hot milk. The milk was almost tasteless, pure and chastening, as Thanial imagined a wafer tasted in church.

He came down in a leisurely way from Paris, stopping overnight in Lyon and also in Aries to see the places that Nicolas Flamel had lived there. He maintained his cheerful equanimity in the face of atrociously bad weather. In Aries, the rain-borne on the violent upbringing soaked him through as he tried to discover the exact spots where Flamel had lived in his childhood. He had bought a beautiful book of Nicolas Flamel's biography in Paris, but he could not take the book out in the rain - he could protect it with a charm, but wouldn't risk using magic without knowing the French laws -, and he had to make a dozen trips back to his hotel to verify the places. He looked over Marseilles, found it drab except for the Cannebiere, and moved on eastward by floo, stopping for a day in St Tropez, Cannes, Nice, Monte Carlo, all the places he had heard of and felt such affinity for when he saw them, though in the month of December they were overcast by grey winter clouds, and the gay crowds were not there, even on New Year's Eve in Menton. Thanial put the people there in his imagination, muggle-men and muggle-women in evening clothes descending the broad steps of the gambling palace in Monte Carlo, people in bright bathing costumes, light and brilliant as a Dufy watercolor, walking under the palms of the Boulevard des Anglais at Nice. People - English, American, French, German, Swedish, Italian. Romance, disappointment, quarrels, reconciliations, murder. The Cote d'Azur excited him as no other place he had yet seen in the world excited him. And it was so tiny, really, this curve in the Mediterranean coastline with the wonderful names strung like beads - Toulon, Frejus, St Rafael, Cannes, Nice, Menton, and then Edinburgh - he had to return.

There were two letters from Ginny when he got back to Edinburgh on the fourth of January. She was giving up the house and moving to Hogwarts on the first of February, she said. She had not quite caught up with the syllabus yet, but she was already sending portfolios out to the Ministry, with the help of the Deputy Headmistress, in the hope of becoming a trainée Auror or in the worst case, get an apprenticeship in some other department. She wrote:

When am I going to see you? I hate passing up a summer in Scotland after I've weathered another awful winter, but I think I'll move back into Hogwarts early in February. Yes, I'm sorta homesick, I miss my friends, finally, really. Honey, it would be so wonderful if we could graduate together. Is there a possibility? I don't suppose there is. You're not going back to Hogsmeade, but Hogwarts even for a short visit this winter?

I need to carry most of my things to Devon, because I hardly have space anymore. I was thinking of sending all my stuff (eight pieces of luggage, two trunks, three boxes of books and miscellaneous!) by floo from Hogsmeade and coming down through Edinburgh and if you were in the mood we could at least go down the coast again and see the Isle of Skye and Wallclaw and the other spots we like - a last look. I'm not in the mood to care about the weather, which I know will be horrid. I wouldn't ask you to accompany me to London, where I catch the Portkey, but from Manchester? What do you think?...

The other letter was more reserved. Thanial knew why: he had not sent her even a postcard for nearly a month. She said:

Have changed my mind about the Isle of Skye. Maybe this chilled weather has taken away my enterprise or my homework has. Anyway, I'm leaving for Devon earlier - on 15 Jan. Imagine - back to Devon as soon as I take the hearth. British food, country-folk, pigs for chickens and all my brothers - Honey. I'm sorry not to be seeing you, as I gather from your silence you still don't want to see me, so don't give it a thought. Consider me off your hands.

Of course I do hope I see you again, in Hogwarts, London or anywhere else. Should you possibly be inspired to make a trip up to Hogsmeade before the 15th, you know damned well you are welcome.

As ever,  
Ginny

P.S. I don't even know if you're still in Edinburgh.

Thanial could see her in tears as she wrote it. He had an impulse to write her a very considerate letter, saying he had just come back from Greece, and had she gotten his two postcards? But it was safer, Thanial thought, to let her leave without being sure where he was. He wrote her nothing.

The only thing that made him uneasy, and that was not very uneasy, was the possibility of Ginny's coming down to see him in Edinburgh before he could get settled in an apartment. If she combed the hotels she could find him, but she could never find him in an apartment. Well-to-do Englishmen didn't have to report their places of residence at the question, though, according to the stipulation of the residence permit, one was supposed to register every change of address with the authorities. Thanial had talked with a British resident of Burghtrix Terrace who had an apartment and who had said he never bothered with the question, and it never bothered him. If Ginny did come down to Edinburgh suddenly, Thanial had a lot of his own clothing hanging ready in the closet. The only thing he had changed about himself, physically, was his hair and glasses, but that could always be explained as being the effect of practising charms on himself. He wasn't really worried. Thanial had at first amused himself with an eyebrow pencil - Anton's eyebrows were longer and turned up a little at the outer edges - and with a touch of magic skin-putty at the end of his nose to make it longer and more pointed, but he abandoned these as too likely to be noticed by seasoned wizards. The main thing about impersonation, Thanial thought, was to maintain the mood and temperament of the person one was impersonating, and to assume the facial expressions that went with them. The rest fell into place.

On the tenth of January Thanial wrote Ginny that he was back in Edinburgh after three weeks in Paris alone, that Thanial had left Burghtrix Terrace a month ago, saying he was going up to Hogwarts, and move himself to the dungeons though he hadn't run into Thanial after this, and that he had not yet found an apartment in Edinburgh but he was looking and would let her know his address as soon as he had one. He thanked her extravagantly for the Christmas package: she had sent the red sweater with the red V stripes that she had been knitting and trying on, Anton for size since October, as well as a Quidditch book of famous players and a leather shaving kit with his initials, D. A. L., on the lid. The package had arrived only on January sixth, which was the main reason for Thanial's letter: he didn't want her to think he hadn't claimed it, imagine that he had vanished into thin air, and then start a search for him. He asked if she had received a package from him? He had mailed it with owl from Paris, and he supposed it was late. He apologized. He wrote: I'm working again with Thormann and am reasonably pleased. I miss you, too, but if you can still bear with my experiment, I'd prefer not to see you for several more weeks (unless you do suddenly go home in January, which I still doubt!) by which time you may not care to see me again. Regards to Christian and wife and Draco if he drops by and Oliver down at the shop...

It was a letter in the absent-minded and faintly lugubrious tone of all Anton's letters, a letter that could not be called warm or unwarm, and that said essentially nothing.

Actually he had found an apartment in a large apartment house in the upscale part near the ruins, and had signed a year's lease for it, though he did not intend to spend most of his time in Burghtrix Terrace, much less the winter. He only wanted a home, a base somewhere besides Hogwarts, after years of not having any. And Edinburgh was chic. Edinburgh was part of his new life. He wanted to be able to say in Majorca or Athens or Cairo or wherever he was: 'Yes, I live in Edinburgh. I keep an apartment there.'

'Keep' was the word for apartments among the international set. You kept an apartment in Europe the way you kept a garage in London. He also wanted his apartment to be elegant, though he intended to have the minimum of people up to see him, and he hated the idea of having a muggle telephone, even an unlisted telephone, but he decided it was more of a safety measure than a menace, so he had one installed. The apartment had a large living-room, a bedroom, a kind of sitting-room, kitchen, and bath. It was furnished somewhat ornately, but it suited the respectable neighborhood and the respectable double-life he intended to lead. The rent was the equivalent of twelve galleons a month in winter including heating bewitchments, and eleven galleons in summer.

Ginny replied with an ecstatic letter saying she had just received the beautiful silk blouse from Paris which she hadn't expected at all and it fitted to perfection. She said she had had Ron, Fred and George, and the Patil-sisters for Christmas dinner at the house and the turkey had been divine, with marrons and giblet gravy and plum pudding and blah blah blah and everything but him. And what was he doing and thinking about? And was he happier? And that the Weasley-twins would look him up on their way to London if he sent an address in the next few days, otherwise leave a message for them at the Burghtrix Express, saying where they could find him.

Thanial supposed her good humor was due mostly to the fact that she now thought Thanial had departed for Slytherin. Along with Ginny's letter came one from Mister Flume, saying that he had sold three pieces of his furniture for thirty galleons and twelve sickles in Hogsmeade, and that he had a prospective buyer for the crafting-tools, a certain Martin Barber of Hogsmeade, who had promised to pay the first down payment within a week, but that the house probably couldn't be sold until summer when the tourists began coming in again. Less fifteen per cent for Mister Flume's commission, the furniture sale amounted to twenty-six galleons and five sickles, and Thanial celebrated that night by going to a nightclub and ordering a superb dinner which he ate in elegant solitude at a candlelit table for two. He did not at all mind dining and going to the theatre alone. It gave him the opportunity to concentrate on being Anton Lestrange. He broke his bread as Anton did, thrust his fork into his mouth with his left hand as Anton did, gazed off at the other tables and at the dancers in such a profound and benevolent trance that the waiter had to speak to him a couple of times to get his attention. Some people waved to him from a table, and Thanial recognized them as one of the American couples he had met at the Christmas Eve party in Paris. He made a sign of greeting in return. He even remembered their name, Souders. He did not look at them again during the evening, but they left before he did and stopped by his table to say hello.

'All by yourself?' the man asked. He looked a little tipsy.

'Yes. I have a yearly date here with myself,' Thanial replied. 'I celebrate a certain anniversary.'

The American nodded a little blankly, and Thanial could see that he was stymied for anything intelligent to say, as uneasy as any small-town American in the presence of cosmopolitan poise and sobriety, money and good clothes, even if the clothes were on a much younger man.

'You said you were living in Edinburgh, didn't you?' his wife asked. 'You know, I think we've forgotten your name, but we remember you very well from Christmas Eve.'

'Lestrange,' Thanial replied. 'Antonio Lestrange.'

'Ah, yes!' she said, relieved. 'Do you have an apartment here?'

She was all ready to take down his address in her memory.

'I'm staying at a hotel at the moment, but I'm planning to move into an apartment any day, as soon as the decorating's finished. I'm at the Burghtrix. Why don't you give me a ring?'

'We'd love to. We're on our way to Majorca in three more days, but that's plenty of time!'

'Love to see you,' Thanial said. 'Good evening!'

Alone again, Thanial returned to his private reveries. He ought to open a bank account for Barthanial Botts, he thought, and from time to time put five galleons or so into it. Anton Lestrange had two banks, one in Scotland and one in London, with about a hundred galleons in each account. He might open the Botts account with a couple of galleons, and put into it the twenty-six galleons from the Hogsmeade furniture. After all, he had two people to take care of.


	14. Duels and Dialogues

Somehow, through the collision of being both Antonio Lestrange and Barthanial Botts, he managed, not just to keep up appearances, but to keep up with the homework and studious student activities that he'd promised himself to excel in, and defiantly succeed comparable to his peers. And he certainly did just that, almost to his own surprise.

Thanial twirled his wand effortlessly in the correct movements for a shielding charm and projected the spell simultaneously from his mind - the timing was paramount, but he'd improved fastly enough that nobody suspected his wand to be anything other than normal.

The bluish hue sprang up just as the hex was about to hit him. The hex rebounded, shooting fastly back towards Ronald Weasley's orange head, a seventh-year Gryffindor and unsurprisingly one of Ginny's brothers, who'd been paired up with Thanial and who'd foolishly used a hex that wasn't allowed in school duels.

Thanial could see Ronald's eyes open in realization, and just a moment too late to parry or make any verbal incantation.

Thanial pocketed his wand just before Ronald's body flung and whirled back against the wall.

The thudding sound of a body hitting the floor.

The duel was over and Thanial made the customary bow, though the redhead still laid face down, making muted groaning noises.

The head of Gryffindor House, and Transfiguration-professor Minerva McGonagall hurried over to help the boy up.

The Dueling Club took place in the Great Hall at eight o'clock in the evening, every Thursday. The long dining tables had vanished and golden stages had appeared along the walls, lit by thousands of candles floating overhead. The ceiling was velvety black and most of the school seemed to be packed beneath them, all carrying their wands and looking excited about the club's first rendezvous after the winter holidays.

Draco, Blaise, and some of the other Slytherins cheered as Thanial made his way down to let the next participants begin.

It had taken Thanial a great deal of time before he'd enjoyed flying, but the opposite had been the case when introduced to the art of dueling. It was exhilarating and intense(in most matches at least), and it made his body and mind connect like never before; made the link stronger and his reflexes faster.

Thanial found his place amidst the Slytherins and watched the matches with a polite smile. The professors moved through the crowd, matching up partners. Flitwick teamed Draco with Justin Finch-Fletchley, and Thanial noticed that Professor Snape had walked amidst the Gryffindors now that McGonagall was occupied, and reached Jane Potter and a bushy-haired girl first - Hermione, if Thanial remembered correctly.

'Time to split up the dream team, I think,' he sneered. 'Granger, you can partner Finnigan. Potter -'

She moved automatically toward another friend.

'I don't think so,' said Snape, smiling coldly. 'Mr. Botts, come over here. Let's see what you make of the famous Potter. And you, Miss Granger - you can partner Miss Bulstrode.'

Thanial could guess what the potions-master was trying to prove and strutted over, still smiling gently. He didn't think Jane ever meant to be selfish, he really didn't. She was, of course, as self-centered as a child. For her, the world that mattered stopped at the tip of her nose. Thanial came to think of her as emotionally blind, she just couldn't see, couldn't empathize with what other people thought or felt. And isn't the unknown always a bit scary? She treated everyone like they were too frightening to get close to. She interacted of course, she laughed and joked, she would even make nice gestures from time to time, though not towards the Slytherins. But ask her a personal question and she would recoil faster than a snapped high-tension spring. After that you'd be in her no-friend zone for a while, isolated until you learned your lesson. Ginny had told him that; explained that they had once been close friends, but that Ginny had made a mistake of some trivial nature, but still enough of a mistake to end the relationship.

Thanial had never faced Jane Potter in a duel, but had seen her multiple times - and she was very good.

'Face your partners!' called Snape from the masses of watching students. 'And bow!'

Thanial and Potter barely inclined their heads, not taking their eyes off each other.

'Wands at the ready!' shouted Snape. 'One… two… three -'

Thanial swung his wand high, but Potter had already started on 'two': Her spell hit Thanial so hard he felt as though he'd been hit in the stomach with the end of a shovel. He stumbled backward, but everything still seemed to be working, and wasting no more time, Thanial pointed his wand straight at Potter and shouted, 'Expulso!' for the sake of consistency with regard to the rules.

A jet of blue light hit Potter in the stomach and she doubled up, wheezing.

'No blasting curses!' Professor Black shouted in alarm over the heads of the battling crowd, as Potter sank to her knees; Thanial had hit her with a very weak blasting curse, and she could barely move for breath. Thanial hung back, with a vague feeling it would be unsporting to bewitch Potter while she was on the floor, but this was a mistake; gasping for breath, Potter pointed her wand at Thanial's knees, choked, 'Bombarda!' and the next second Thanial's hand made an upward motion on instinct and a stream of liquid gold sprang up from the platform; reconstructing part of the platform into a protective wall just before the explosion rang from the other side.

'Stop! Stop!' screamed Black over the blast, but Snape took charge. 'Finite Incantatem!' he shouted; Thanial's wall wobbled for a moment and then dissolved back into the plateau, Potter caught her breath, and they were able to look at each other.

A haze of greenish smoke was hovering over the scene. Both Draco and Justin were lying on the floor, panting; Blaise was holding up an ashen-faced Pansy, apologizing for whatever he had done; but Hermione and Millicent Bulstrode were still moving; Hermione had Millicent backed into a corner and Millicent was whimpering in pain; both their wands tossing different colored spells erratically at each other.

'Mr. Botts and Miss Potter, you may resume,' Snape's voice rang again. 'Three - two - one - go!' he shouted.

'Stupefy,' Potter said immediately.

The red bolt moved like lightning along the podium, crackling and twisting, and Thanial barely shielded himself before two new followed it.

He flung his school-robes out to stop them - the robes had after all been enchanted to repel curses from Death Eaters.

He could hear two small hissing sounds from the fabric and knew it had worked.

'No use of robes!' roared Professor Black.

Thanial ignored the reprimand and shot a green stunner back at Potter.

She dodged nimbly to the left and fired back. 'Stupefy!'

Thanial had time to put his shielding charm on, but the power of the spell upon impact was far greater than before and he staggered for a moment - what was up with that? Had she put more energy into the spell?

'STUPEFY!' she spoke louder than before.

Thanial had no time to be offensive and used a shield charm - again he stumbled upon impact - even more than before. How did her stunner suddenly become stronger?

This time everyone in the Great Hall could hear her. 'STUPEFY!'

Thanial knew that instant that he wouldn't be able to withstand it again and thought very quickly: He knew of the Impediment Jinx that would slow a target down, for some ten seconds or so, but that didn't work on spells obviously. The idea was worth a shot though - if not Impedimenta, but that effect then...

Thanial's wandless hand palmed in the direction of the bolt, feeling the hairs stand up along his arm, and then he made a fist.

The bolt stopped midair.

Potter's stunner was sparkling tamely a few feet from Thanial, not blocked, not countered, not deflected, caught like a fly in honey; fizzing and lashing out with small red sparks.

Thanial understood what made up the stunner - well somewhat, but it was one of the easier spells to comprehend. Lightning that numbs was easier understood then a tickling charm that tickles for example. Lightning as an element could be controlled.

Thanial could feel its electricity slowly make it harder to hold into place and promptly released his grip away from him, and the bolt flashed red to his left, hitting a wall and dying out.

The girl facing him looked appalled and cried louder and lounder, sending more and more stunners, each one more powerful.

Thanial understood now finally, and not only that. He got it! Why her spells were stronger each time.

There were more flashes of light as more desperate spells were fired, but they fizzled out in midair like candle-flames touching water.

'Could you please stop using your birthcraft Miss Potter? I would rather you fight fairly,' Thanial said politely though slightly out of breath - catching and stifling stunner-bolts took a toll on his stamina.

Her face twisted. 'Alright...' She raised her wand quickly and bellowed, 'Petralapis!'

The end of her wand exploded. Thanial watched the summoning, surprised, as great dark stones shot out of it, fell heavily onto the floor between them, and then levitated, ready to strike. There were screams as the crowd backed swiftly away, clearing the floor.

'Concede, Botts,' said Black lazily, clearly enjoying the sight of Thanial standing motionless against his goddaughter, eye to eye with an artillery of small boulders. 'This is beyond what the teach at Durmstrang I believe...'

Jane Potter's upper lip was curling. Thanial wondered why Snape was still smiling; did Snape think that highly of him? Or perhaps Snape realized that he'd been using transmutation on the platform instead of transfiguration - perhaps Snape could see that he was an alchemist? Thanial, unfortunately, had no time to ponder and turned his eyes to meet Potter's, returning the smirk.

Her smile stretched all the way to her ears before her arm shot directly in his direction whereupon the stones shot off like cannons.

Thanial only had a second, but he understood the elements adequately enough to know that those stones were granite, a common rock, that was a combination of the minerals quartz, feldspar, and biotite. That was really all it took.

He flung his wand-arm out in a semi-circle, and as if he had a large spherical shield protecting him, the rocks turned to sand just before hitting him, one after the other, letting the particles swirl around him until the last stone. He had to tighten his eyes.

The sand whirled around him faster and faster, slowly taking a more solid form and becoming a dense ring of stone once more.

In the hands of a wandless alchemist even stone was like dough to be formed, and as Thanial willed the image, the ring of solid stone surrounding him separated and made a single cylinder; The form of a limbless dragon, shooting forward the next second in a dazzling flash, like a spear piercing the air and Potter was blasted off her feet: She flew backward off the stage, smashed into the wall, and slid down it to sprawl on the floor. The long stone then fell down with a crash that almost cracked the floor.

Thanial knew she wasn't hurt badly. He had been in complete control, and wizards could take a punch a bit harder than any muggle. Her birthcraft was advantageous, to say the least; being able to draw more magical strength by oral velocity and pitch... well, he'd surely lost if he hadn't thought so quickly. He felt drained though - tired.

He tried to keep his shoulders back and chest up before he bowed politely.

He straightened again and saw McGonagall help Potter up. Potter's eyes met his for just a moment and then she sneered.

'In the future, Mr. Botts,' said Snape as he got down, 'You might want to restrain yourself. That's not to say I wasn't impressed, but remember that - keeping one's tricks hidden is often the better choice, in the end.'

Thanial understood completely and nodded. He didn't feel like he'd let anyone down because Snape's words had a different meaning when Thanial saw that giant grin he wore.

'On a different matter entirely,' added the Potions-master, 'The Headmaster would like have some words with you. As soon as possible actually, so if you'd care to join me Mr. Botts.'

Thanial nodded again, ignoring the many stares as he followed Snape out of the hall. 'Thank you Professor.'

They walked in silence for a long time and ascended more stairs and arrived at more floors than the castle ought to have. In theory, they should be above the roofs by know, but Thanial had gotten used to things like that, though he hadn't grown tired of it. He loved Hogwarts.

'Please don't worry too much, Mr. Potter,' said Professor Snape in front of Thanial. 'Headmaster Dumbledore may seem a little odd, or a lot odd, or even extremely odd, but he has never hurt a student in the slightest, and I don't believe he ever will.' Professor Snape gave Thanial a thin smile. 'Just keep that in mind at all times.'

Thanial had felt fine until then. This was not helping.

'Good luck Mr. Botts,' said Snape, leaned over to the gargoyle and said something that Thanial somehow failed to hear at all. (Of course, the password wouldn't be much good if you could hear someone saying it.) And the stone gargoyle walked aside with a very natural and ordinary movement that Thanial found rather shocking, since the gargoyle still looked like solid, immovable stone the whole time.

Behind the gargoyle was a set of slowly revolving spiral stairs. There was something disturbingly hypnotic about it, and even more disturbing was that revolving the spiral ought not to take you anywhere.

'You better hurry, it's getting late,' said Snape.

Thanial rather nervously stepped onto the spiral, and found himself, for some reason that his brain couldn't seem to visualize at all, moving upwards.

The gargoyle thudded back into place behind him, and the spiral stairs kept turning and Thanial kept being higher up, and after a rather dizzying time, Thanial found himself in front of an oak door with a brass griffin knocker.

Thanial reached out and turned the doorknob.

The door swung open.

And Thanial saw the most interesting room he'd ever seen in his life.

There were tiny metal mechanisms that whirred or ticked or slowly changed shape or emitted little puffs of smoke. There were dozens of mysterious fluids in dozens of oddly shaped containers, all bubbling, boiling, oozing, changing color, or forming into interesting shapes that vanished half a second after you saw them. There were things that looked like clocks with many hands, inscribed with numbers or in unrecognizable languages. There was a bracelet bearing a lenticular crystal that sparkled with a thousand colors, and a red phoenix perched atop a golden platform, and a wooden cup filled with what looked like blood, and a statue of a falcon encrusted in black enamel. The wall was all hung with pictures of people sleeping, and the Sorting Hat was casually poised on a hatrack that was also holding two umbrellas and three red slippers for left feet. The Sorting Hat... he'd almost forgotten about that first encounter, but that better be left for another time.

In the midst of all the chaos was a clean black oaken desk. Before the desk was an oaken stool. And behind the desk was a well-cushioned throne containing Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, who was adorned with a long silver beard, a pointed white hat, and what looked to Muggle eyes like three layers of pearly-whity bathrobes.

Dumbledore was smiling, and his bright eyes twinkled with a mad intensity.

With some trepidation he didn't show, Thanial seated himself in front of the desk. The door swung shut behind him with a loud thunk.

Thanial remembered Dumbledore's long list of unusual talents, legilimency in particular. On occasions like these, he was glad to know Occlumency, and glad to have his barriers up. Thanial's smile grew chillier, and he regarded the old man who thought he was going to read Thanial's mind.

And then Thanial turned into someone else entirely, someone who had seemed appropriate.

...in the most interesting room of tiny ticking instruments, full of trinkets, full of artifacts, sitting before a desk, facing a smiling old man in silver robes of solid white.

Draco Malfoy regarded the white-robed Headmaster who thought he was going to read the mind of a True Heir of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Malfoy.

To say that Draco Malfoy was confident of the outcome would be an understatement. He had been trained by his father, the most powerful Occlumens from the British Isles and the mere wizard sitting across from him would see precisely what Draco Malfoy wanted him to see...

...the mind of the boy he was currently disguised as, an innocent young scholar and a trusted friend named Barthanial Botts.

'Hello, Barthanial,' said Dumbledore.

'Hello, Headmaster,' Thanial replied. So they were on a first-name basis? Would Dumbledore now say to call him -

'Please, Barthanial!' said Dumbledore. 'Headmaster sounds so formal. Just call me Albus for short.'

'I'll be sure to, Albus,' said Thanial.

There was a slight pause.

'Do you know," said Dumbledore, 'why I requested your presence this here night?'

'Ah...' Thanial said. Draco-pretending-to-be-Thanial tried to control his voice despite the sudden sinking feeling in his stomach. 'I'm sorry, I, ah, Headmaster, I really don't know -'

'Albus, please!' said Dumbledore cheerfully. 'And there's no call to be so worried, I won't launch you out a window in any case. I'll give you plenty of warnings first, if you're doing something wrong! Besides, how were you to know why I invited you.'

He really was mad.

Dumbledore drew forth a small metal case and flipped it open, showing some small yellow lumps. 'Sherbet lemon?' said the Headmaster.

'Er, no thank you, Albus,' said Thanial. Does slipping a student Veritaserum count as hurting them, or does that fall into the category of harmless fun? 'Perhaps, um, winning a duel against Jane Potter had something to do with it?' It was a long shot.

'That is most certainly correct!' Dumbledore said. 'Thankfully no-one got hurt, as we take the rules very seriously here at Hogwarts. But it was just a little remark in regards to that.'

'Ah...' Thanial said. He was aware that his mouth was hanging open - how could the Headmaster already know these things? 'Why did you call me here, then?'

'Why?' Dumbledore repeated. 'Ah, Barthanial, I simply wished to know about Antonio Lestrange, as I got this letter from him some days ago that left me quite dumbfounded to say the least. You were friends I've heard... I'm always saddened to see a noble student drop out, you know.'

Thanial nodded, smiling. 'Yes, I was saddened as well, but I believe he is doing fine though.' Draco-pretending-to-be-Thanial spoke honestly.

There was another slight pause, during which Thanial went on smiling. He was a little apprehensive, actually a lot apprehensive, but once it had become clear that Dumbledore was deliberately messing with him, something within him absolutely refused to sit and take it like a defenseless lump.

'I'm afraid that becoming too cautious has left me with too many responsibilities,' said Dumbledore after the slight pause, 'and yet we ourselves need to be cautious in these times, and so I'm left to inquire.'

'Indeed,' Thanial said with grave solemnity. 'I can assure you that Anton is doing perfectly fine and is currently keeping an apartment in Burghtrix Terrace. If that was all Albus? I need to catch the last carriage for Hogsmeade.'

For a moment Thanial wondered if he'd gone too far, but he did need to catch a carriage at some point(and rather sooner than staying with the Headmaster).

Then Dumbledore chuckled. 'Straight to the point it shall be.' The Headmaster leaned forwards, tilting his pointed white hat and brushing his beard against his desk. 'Barthanial, this afternoon you did something that should have been impossible with transfiguration. Or rather, impossible with only a transmutation. How did those rocks change form, I wonder?'

A jolt of adrenaline shot through Draco-pretending-to-be-Thanial. He'd no clue as to how Thanial had done it, and it clearly hadn't been any normal transfiguration he'd seen. How in Merlin's beard had he done that? The Headmasters eyes pierced him - it was legilimency!

(From deep below his Occlumency-barriers, the real Thanial fed the imagined Draco the needed information.)

'Alchemy' - Draco-pretending-to-Thanial abruptly remembered - It was the scientific technique of understanding the structure of matter, decomposing it, and then reconstructing it. If performed skillfully, it was even possible to create gold out of lead. However, as it was a science, there were some natural principles in place. Only one thing could be created from something else of a certain mass.

'Alchemy,' Dumbledore went on, 'Using the Principle of Equivalent Exchange is not easily done Barthanial.'

The Headmaster fell for it, but Thanial's upper body had tensely firmed up. 'I've practiced for a long time Albus.'

'You couldn't possibly get at that level without a mentor?' Dumbledore smiled conspiratorially. 'Am I on the right track so far, Barthanial?'

Draco-pretending-to-be-Thanial was frozen. He had the feeling that an outright lie would not at all be wise, and possibly not the least bit helpful when the Headmaster used legilimency, and he couldn't think of anything else to say.

Dumbledore waved a friendly hand. 'Don't worry, Barthanial, you haven't done anything wrong. Alchemy isn't against the rules - I suppose it's rare enough that no one ever got around to putting it on the list. But really I was wondering something else entirely.'

'Oh?' Thanial said in the most normal voice he could manage.

Dumbledore's eyes shone with enthusiasm. 'You see, Barthanial, after you've been through a few adventures you tend to catch the hang of these things. You start to see the pattern, hear the rhythm of the world. You begin to harbor suspicions before the moment of revelation. You are an Alchemist, and somehow won a duel with our great savior of our magical Britain using wandless transmutation. She is among the top students and a witch of extraordinary talents - not even considering her birthcraft - as are you, I now see. And so I cannot help but wonder if by some strange chance you have apprenticed not under a great Alchemist, but thée Great Alchemist, the immortal and never-changing Nicolas Flamel, my former college and reputed creator of the Philosopher's Stone.' Dumbledore's gaze was bright and eager. 'Am I correct, Barthanial?'

Draco-pretending-to-be-Thanial swallowed. There was a full flood of adrenaline in his system now and it was entirely useless, this was the most powerful wizard in the world and there was no way he could make it out the door and there was nowhere in Hogwarts for him to hide if he did, he didn't know anything about an apprenticeship under Flamel - this whole scene was absurd. The bright light had gone out of his eyes, and he looked puzzled and a little angry. 'And so it is,' said Dumbledore, 'you don't have to answer Barthanial, I can see that you didn't.'

Thanial fixed a smile. 'Correct Albus, I didn't, and now I would very much like to catch the carriage.' He got up and made a small bow. 'I can assure you that Anton is perfectly fine, and I do have some homework that can't write itself.'

There was the sound behind him of a door opening.

'It was great to finally meet you in person Barthanial,' Dumbledore said, 'but it'll do you good to remember Jane Potter as the hero she is and show her some honor in the future.'

'I certainly will.' Draco-pretending-to-be-Thanial turned, took a step towards the open door and then he was racing down the spiral stairs even as they turned, his feet almost stumbling over themselves, in just a moment he was at the bottom and the gargoyle was walking aside and Thanial fired out of the stairwell like a cannonball. He could finally drop his Occlumency-barriers completely.

As if he'd dived and finally reached the surface after minutes under water; He breathed heavily and in long intakes.

The Headmaster was smarter than he initially had thought - not just more smart, but more powerfull and even more mad!


	15. Inferious Plots

The Hogwarts school was just as unpredictably sound as ever; stairs were disappearing and reappearing randomly, a never-seen-before ghost had allegedly started to haunt the Hufflepuff dormitory, and a snowstorm had suddenly begun to terrorize the Southern Astrology-Tower last Friday.

Thanial would have liked to take part in the usual chatter and would surely have enjoyed the spectacle, experiencing Hogwarts as he'd intended, but unfortunately he would have to wait a few days until everything besides the usual had calmed down.

It had darned on Thanial that the Headmaster could be watching everything he did within the school, and he suddenly felt very much the same as when in the company of Aurors - watched and paranoid. And not only that - most of the student's above their fifth-year had started to take notice him; not just as friendly bookworm atop his classes who was willing to help them study, but as an ostentatious dueller who could manage a fair fight with The-Girl-Who-Lived - maybe even dangerous. Thanial decided that in order for that to blow over, Barthanial Botts would need to keep a low profile and walk the crowded halls alone.

His days were broken only by the arrival of free-periods and lunch, the class-assignments, his friendly demeanor unbroken. There were faces and busybodies but not most were familiar. Some were kind, most were harried, and the air was punctuated with questions as those with strong opinions about the Light and Dark found Thanial the latter. Some questions were softer, not hateful but just curious. The Slytherin-House seemed to have an unspoken rule against internal prying and even Draco didn't comment on the duel with Potter - Thanial felt grateful for Draco and his house for that. The whole ordeal somehow managed to give him time with his extracurricular search for the Philosopher's Stone, though visiting the Forbidden Section would have to wait with the Headmaster's eyes probably watching his every move. He'd thankfully made a lot of copies to go through at his apartment.

Thanial ran through the list of places it could be in his mind, checking off the ones he had already searched. As he gazed around the apartment. It now had the look of a place that had been burgled. Then it occurred to him that you often find things as you tidy up, and he set about the task with a sort of meticulousness that was quite uncharacteristic of Anton. As he sifted and sorted his eyes were constantly on the look-out for any circles of pentagon or hexagon that might be part of the array he was looking for. By the time the sun had set in Burghtrix Terrace he was in something of a short-temper, having turned up nothing but a few parchments about ritualistic summoning and a stack of dark sacrificial enchantments.

He gave up at that point and sighed wearily - the memory of that array might have been from a dream or something of the sort. He rarely doubted his memory, but even so...

Thanial shuffled the stack about ritualistic summonings together and began to read the first absentmindedly.

...Necromancy is a practice of magic involving communication with the deceased – either by summoning their spirit as an apparition or raising them bodily – for the purpose of divination, imparting the means to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge, to bring someone back from the dead, or to use the deceased as a weapon, as the term may sometimes be used in a more general sense to refer to black or dark witchcraft. The spells used to reanimate a human body are much more complex than those used, for instance, to make inanimate objects fly. The hexagonal array is therefore used primarily in the creation of inferius abnormalities...

Thanial blinked and abruptly sat up straighter. What in Slytherins slithering snakes was he reading? Did the forbidden section really hold knowledge on the creation of Inferi? That didn't sound plausible. He went on reading:

...As no spell from recorded thaumaturgy lore can bring back the dead, Inferius beings are not alive, just corpse puppets, similar to the puppets used in the South Americas' practices of voodooism. Despite this, it may be possible that they can speak. Preserved indefinitely by Dark magic, an Inferius can only be destroyed by fire, for no spell has been found to render dead flesh impervious to burning...

Thanial was certain that the text had been old, because he had been taught of a few enchantments that could block fire just last week.

...The ritual of the Inferi varies depending on size, and the sacrifice thusly so. Theophrastus Paracelsus describes it as follows in 'Herbivore, Omnivore, and Carnivore - The Archidoxes of Magic': The Hermetic and Alchemical Laws cannot be broken and therefore everything has a value equal to the other, unless in death. Experiments on squirrels let me believe that a novice understanding of transmutation is required, and not just the ritual summoning of puppeteering left by the precursors. The pentagonal array has proven adequate for animals, which leads me to consider the use of the hexagonal array when using a human body...

Thanial had forgotten to breathe and paused. He's previously read all he could find on Paracelsus, but the 'Achidoxes of Magic' had been too hard and rare to find. He continued:

...Following a perfect circle of fire surrounding the deceased body, the hexagon must be drawn inside the circle and in a fire as before. All of this is done in precise measurements, and the assistance of an elementalist or wandless alchemist is recommended. My experiment on the squirrels show strange results if their bodies are not yet completely dead, so that would be an absolute necessity of course...

Thanial continued to scan the parchments, whilst simultaneously wondering about the war in the east and the Inferi that supposedly had been made by the Death Eaters. That meant a whole lot more now when he thought about it. It meant that they had an understanding of alchemy - or only a few of them did - and that they were doing experiments as well, maybe...

Thanial got very little sleep that night, but he didn't worry all too much since it was Saturday and he only had one appointment Sunday around Lunch at a beautiful trunk shop. He really wanted a proper trunk and saw they sold a whole variety just down the main street of Burghtrix Terrace.

The trunk shop was more richly appointed than any other shop Thanial had visited in Edinburgh; the curtains were lush and delicately patterned, the floor and walls of stained and polished wood, and the trunks occupied places of honor on polished ivory platforms. The salesman was dressed in robes of finery only a cut below those of Lucius Malfoy or Rabastan Lestrange, and spoke with exquisite, oily politeness to both Thanial and the other customers.

Thanial had asked his questions, and had gravitated to a trunk of heavy-looking wood, not polished but warm and solid, carved with the pattern of a serpent eating it's own tail; an ouroboros dragon whose eyes shifted to look at anyone nearing it. A trunk charmed to be light, to shrink on command, to sprout small-clawed tentacles from its bottom and squirm after its owner. A trunk with two drawers on each of four sides that each slid out to reveal compartments as deep as the whole trunk. A lid with four locks each of which would reveal a different space inside. And - this was the important part - a handle on the bottom which slid out a frame containing a staircase leading down into a small, lighted room that would hold, Thanial estimated, around twelve bookcases.

If they made luggage like this, Thanial didn't know why anyone bothered owning a house.

One hundred and eight golden Galleons. That was the price of a good trunk, lightly used. At around fifty British pounds to the Galleon, that was enough to buy a second-hand car. It would be more expensive than everything else Thanial had ever bought in his whole life all put together.

Ninety-seven Galleons. That was how much was left in Anton's mokeskin pouch. 'I'd also like these to have my initials embossed, I don't know if you do that ...embossed?' Thanial asked the salesman.

'Embossed, of course, Mister Lestrange.'

There came an excited rap on the window and a shout of ANTON!

Thanial turned over in shock to find beautiful blonde woman outside, alone and delighted to see him. Thanial remembered, grinned and mouthed a 'hello.'

'Anton!' she said entering the shop. 'By Merlin! Hello.' Fleur Delacour was a woman of such breathtaking beauty that the room seemed to have become strangely airless. She was tall and willowy with long blonde hair and appeared to emanate a faint, silvery glow.

She idly chatted along as Thanial waited for the salesman to emboss the trunk with Anton's initials, which didn't take long, and as Thanial was already in character, decided to invite her out on a stroll.

'But why didn't you join us at the championship, I'm curious?'

'What?'

'At the camp. To Liverpool with Cedric Diggory and -'

'How did you know that?' Thanial interrupted, hardly concealing his astonishment.

Fleur smiled. 'Everybody knows Cedric Diggory.'

Thanial felt uneasy. 'Is Cedric in Edinburgh?'

'Now? I don't think so. But I've met him, of course, and we've chatted and I know about you and Ginny and Hogsmeade and what an unreliable baboon you are.' She nudged him with her shoulder and smiled. 'Cedric said you were a baboon and I thought to myself now I know why he travels under B.'

Thanial was not sure how to proceed, but managed after a pause to speak as Anton would. 'I've left Ginny, Fleur... And Hogsmeade. So the baboon's here now, in Edinburgh.'

'Sorry, I wouldn't have made a joke if -'

'Don't be sorry. I've never been happier.' Thanial beamed. 'I feel like I've been handed a new life.'

Thanial was sure that none of them had become bored, even after half an hour of them walking and talking, Fleur could still hold a conversation lightly and with grace - they even started to discuss the aristocracy.

'The truth is,' she said, 'if you've had money your entire life, even if you despise it, which we do - agreed? - you're only truly comfortable around other people who have it and despise it.'

Thanial chuckled. 'I know.'

She was blushing. 'I've never admitted that to anyone.'

Thanial had taken her arm in his, and as the day was still young, they both felt like going on a little spending spree. Soon he was signing Anton's allowance receipt in the Gringotts Burghtrix Branch, Fleur beside him, signing her own counterfoil. He was, of course, endorsed by her presence. The clerk compared Thanial's signature with the one on Anton's passport and then looked up at him, but Thanial was cool as a cucumber. 'I don't want too many Galleons. Nobody will change them.'

Fleur loved shopping - Thanial agreed with her - and she even described why; She loved the perfumed boutiques. Loved to bask in the attention of the sales staff and pawing over different fabrics and textures. She would try on new boots and hats, get a free make-over and then head to a café for refreshments. The garments she brought home would probably never be worn or maybe worn once, Thanial guessed. She was a shop-a-holic. It was a compulsion to her, and Thanial was happily dragged along to one tailer after the other, whilst his new trunk scooted after him. He didn't need to worry about his luggage being stolen, apparently. His trunk had the status of a major magical item, something that most Muggles wouldn't notice; that was part of what you could get in the wizarding world, if you were willing to pay the price of a secondhand car.

A tailer was finishing the fitting of a cashmere jacket for him, with bolts of cloth everywhere as Fleur adjudicated the possible materials, which the tailor held up against Thanial.

'Show me the other one again.' she said and the tailor obliged, 'I like them both.'

'I'll take them both.' Thanial said without respite. He began to understand just what kind of life Anton had taken for granted and after what must have been a whole new wardrobe for them both, they felt exhausted.

Thanial invited Fleur up to his apartment to get changed and inspect the wares. She didn't comment on the place, but simply sat down as he went inside the bedroom to change. Thanial peered out and saw her noticing a broom resting on a wall.

'I know you're a Quidditch fiend but do you absolutely hate the Opera?' her voice rang from the living room, 'I've been trying to give my tickets away, it's tomorrow, but if you were prepared to be dragged...'

She looked up to catch Thanial bare-chested as he emerged. He could see her intoxication with him - the romance she would think to be in the air.

Thanial picked up a blouse. 'You could drag me.'

* * *

The auditorium was packed with witches and wizards, spanning all three decks and what looked like nine balconies from where he sat. Thanial had never dabbled much in muggle-entertainment, but wizardkind's Opera's was surely more of a spectacle to behold - of that he was certain. Thanial wore a new set of black dress-robes and was seated in a center box. The balcony also included a glamorous Fleur who wore velvety-red and her aunt and uncle.

Operators stood from behind the stage and charmed forth the most wonderful illusions; On stage golden rain suddenly fell, followed by swirls of different colored spheres, in which you could see the singer's expressions more closely. Thanial had never experienced an Opera before, but he was hooked. Even if he'd forgotten all of Act One, he was no less touched when the man sang his aria in such a booming voice that all fibers of his being shook to the core.

Thanial didn't know what would come next and felt sweat form on his back as the main-character was suddenly shot by his friend in a wizards-duel; Blood pouring from his neck into the snow, his comrade, horrified at the death of his friend, went over, wrapping him in his own cloak, kneeling, holding him... Thanial could barely hide his emotion. Everything with Anton - the parallel was too much and the memories of Anton bleeding. Thanial turned to Fleur who had her eyes fixed on him. He tried a smile an turned back - she had seen the tears that still rolled steadily down his cheeks. He could still sense her watching, entranced by his sensitive side.

His cheeks were dry when the second act ended and Thanial and Fleur exited their box along with her Aunt and Uncle, all heading for the interval drinks.

The foyer area, what Thanial had heard an up-timer call a lobby, ran the full width of the building. Foyer was not a grand enough word for him to describe the room. It seemed more of a gallery, with doors all along the west side into the various seating areas of the auditorium, high ceilings, and three large crystal chandeliers.

The four of them milled around a bit, until Fleur's aunt Julia literally stumbled over her husband's walking stick with an 'Oof!'

'Steady there, ma cherie,' Martin said as he grabbed her elbow to keep her from sprawling on the floor.

A moment later, she was stable again, brushing her hands down the front of her shimmering silver dress. 'My thanks,' Julia said.

Thanial gave them both a smile. 'Thanks so much for inviting me tonight.'

'Can you bear it?' asked Julia. 'We hear you're a friend of Cedric's - he has I hate Opera tattooed on his chest.'

Thanial agreed. 'There's room for a whole libretto on Cedric's chest.'

Julia laughed a bit loud too loud. 'I'm sure we've met.'

They reached the console where a small elf held up their drinks.

'I was sure we'd met, weren't you, Martin? This is Rabastan Lestrange's boy.'

Thanial nipped to the white-wine. 'Thanks, yes, I think we did.'

Julia shook her head. 'One minute you people are children and the next you're getting tattooed.'

They chatted for some ten minutes before Thanial had to excuse himself, hurrying past many faces on his hunt for the Men's Room.

He barely got anywhere before he walked straight into a young and (apparently) cultured Draco Malfoy. They greeted each other and suddenly Ginny came up beside him.

Ginny looked as if she'd seen a ghost. 'Oh my God. Thanial.'

Thanial could feel the fakeness from his smile radiate outwards. 'Ginny, how are you? What are you doing in Edinburgh?'

'Is he here? Are you with Anton?'

'No.' Thanial turned to Draco, 'Funny to see you here Draco.'

'I know father would praise me for going to the opera. Ginny really had to drag me - of course, we miss you in Slytherin you know.' Draco said and his upper lip curled.

Ginny stared at Thanial strangely. 'No glasses...'

Thanial quickly fished out a pair of fake glasses from his jacket. 'Ditto,' Thanial said to Draco.

'Where are you hiding him?' asked Draco, 'He's impossible, isn't he?'

Ginny looked beside herself. 'Is he really not here?'

Thanial felt his blood pump faster. After putting the glasses on and faking a chuckle. 'Ginny, you know Anton has I hate Opera tattooed on his chest.'

'You were going to move into the dorms.' said Ginny.

She remembered.

Draco gave his empty glass to an elf. 'Yes, what happened? I heard you were desperate to come. I was looking forward to showing you around Slytherin.'

'I am.' Thanial said. 'I really am. And I've been packing. I just can't seem to get moving.'

'Well hurry, before we graduate.' Draco said, reaching into his jacket, 'Should I give my address in London case you don't make it?'

Amidst everything Thanial and Draco shared a genuine smile. 'Thanks.'

Draco handed the card to Thanial just as the interval bell rang.

Draco's eyes caught something behind Thanial. 'Look there's Fleur thingy - who's that, Ginny? - they're in textiles... Fleur -' Draco was definitely embarrassed for not remembering. 'Merlin, how awful, I've spent Christmas in her house...!'

'I don't know her.' Ginny said and then to Thanial: 'He's hardly written, just these cryptic notes. You don't just dump people.'

The bell rang for the last time and there was a mini-stampede from all around to return.

'Will we see you later?' asked Draco.

'I can't later.'

'And tomorrow after school?'

Thanial was itching to get away - to run! 'Tomorrow's possible. Do you know the Sweet Oyster? By the ruins?'

Draco smiled. 'I know the Sweet Oyster. What time?'

Thanial was backing away. 'Four-thirty?'

'We'll be there.'

'Okay.' Thanial said. 'Ginny, see you tomorrow. It was nice to see you Draco.'

Thanial went straight to Fleur and grasped her arm. 'Let's go.'

'I thought you were enjoying yourself?'

Thanial slowly dragged her against the stream of people, pushing their way through the crowd. 'Let's take a carriage and look at the moon.'

'You're crazy! It's freezing out there.'

Thanial craned his head, looking past her where a mirror reflected Ginny wading through the audience and Draco's elegant head getting dangerously near as they approached their seats.

'C'mon, I need to talk to you. Just the two of us.'

Fleur looked quite taken. 'Okay then, you're crazy.'

They exited the Opera-House at a far end of Burghtrix Terrace and it was indeed very chilly.

They got a cart for themselves; a four-seater and they shared a bench. Fleur still shivered in the raw night as they cross the road, all the while Thanial as Anton confessed that his heart belonged to Ginny.

'Don't worry. Really. Don't worry.' Thanial could hear the disappointment, her tone of voice falling and raising unnaturally.

'You're such a pal to understand.' He paused and stared thoughtfully at her. 'It's as if Ginny is here now - I look at you and I see her face - and I can't, whatever I'm feeling towards you - I just can't...'

'No, I absolutely understand. Of course.'

'Otherwise you'd be fighting me off.'

She made a laughing sound. 'Beating you away.'

They arrived at the courtyard outside Fleur's Apartment Building. Thanial jumped down and collected her.

She made to go inside and then glanced back at him. 'Will you meet me tomorrow? I'm traveling south... Just to say goodbye in the daylight, properly? So it's not just this, it's too...' her eyes were getting wet. 'you should always save pain for daylight...'

'Oh Fleur, I'm sorry. Of course I'll meet you.' He gave her a smile. 'Let's have coffee in the afternoon at the Oyster.'

The wind blew and Fleur fluttered. 'I don't - is that by the Ruins?

'Exactly. Four-Thirty. - Um, Four-Fifteen,' he instantly corrected himself.

Thanial waved and got back into the cart. It moved off.

* * *

Thanial had for the first, and hopefully last time skipped a school day. He'd owled his Head of House and explained in a formal tone that he had private matters to attend to - he was sure that Snape if any would understand that. The risk of running into Ginny, Draco, or Miss Delacour had simply been too huge, so he'd instead used the day to plan the encounter at the Sweet Oyster.

Thanial, dressed as Thanial, watched from on top the ruins as Fleur sat and waited outside the Oyster at the bottom of the steps. He'd used a strange spell earlier which should allow him to hear where he looked - the whole thing was a spur-of-the-moment idea, but he could hear Fleur's breathing from afar so it must have worked somehow.

Slowly Ginny and Draco appeared walking up the main street.

Thanial held his breath.

They went to another table and didn't' see Fleur.

Fleur acknowledged Draco, but he hadn't noticed her yet.

'Draco?' Fleur eventually said, taking off her sunglasses. 'Hello, it's Fleur Delacour.'

Draco was surprised. 'Of course it is, Fleur, hello, I'm sorry, half-asleep, how are you?' He shook her hand, 'This is Ginny Weasley. Fleur Delacour.'

'Hello.' said Ginny.

Hearing Ginny's name made Fleur pause - Thanial noticed that.

'Join us, won't you?' Draco said. 'We're just waiting for a friend. Do you know, I wonder did we see you at the Opera last night?'

Fleur was hesitant for a moment. 'I won't actually, although I think this might - are you waiting for Anton?'

'Well no, as it happens, although...'

Ginny looked absolutely stunned by the mention of his name. 'Anton? Do you know Anton?'

'You were at the Opera?' Fleur said, then seeming like she finally understood. 'Well, that explains - yes I was there. I was there with Anton.'

Ginny turned to Draco. 'I told you! I knew it!'

Fleur moved slowly over to them. 'Ginny, I don't know you, so I have no right,' she paused and then smiled, 'but Anton loves you. He's - I think you'll find he's coming home to you.'

Ginny expression grew confused. 'How would you know that?'

'He told me everything. I was supposed to meet him fifteen minutes ago, so I...' she picked up her bag. 'I'm going to go now, I think. Unless he meant us to meet - which would be a little cruel, wouldn't it?'

'No, we're meeting another friend.' Draco said. 'Barthanial Botts.'

'Do you know Thanial?' asked Ginny.

Now Fleur looked confused. 'Botts? No. I heard about him, of course, but no, I didn't meet him.'

A waiter arrived to take orders and Fleur quickly indicated that she was leaving. 'Not for me. No, thanks.'

Thanial could see that Ginny was on the edge. Draco laid a hand on hers for comfort.

Fleur got on her sunglasses. 'I hope I didn't complicate matters, but nothing, nothing untoward happened, nothing to prevent you from welcoming him back, from marrying him... Goodbye. Goodbye Draco,' she moved awkwardly away. 'please don't get up.'

Draco got up, but Thanial, from his vantage point at the top of the steps, watched her leave and walk off into the crowd.

Thanial touched a finger to his temple and a sound, like that of cracking an egg, rang in his ears before his audio-perception was normal again. He slowly began the walk down towards the square and just as he became visible to the cafe, started to hurry.

He was already apologizing to Ginny and Draco as they saw him. 'Sorry, sorry.' Thanial said before sitting down. 'Had to answer an owl from the bank. Goblin bureaucracy - never one stamp when they can make you line up for three. Have you been waiting long?'

'Not at all.' said Draco smiling. 'Hello Thanial.'

'Hi.' He turned toward Ginny. 'Sorry. You okay? You look as if you've seen a ghost...'

She still seemed bewildered. 'Anton was at the Opera last night.'

'I don't believe it. Wild hyppogriffs wouldn't drag Anton to -'

'He was there with someone. So I suppose she must have dragged him - that's not fair.' Her face fell into a mixture of sorrow and reflection. 'I'm going back to Hogsmeade. I think Anton's coming home.' she looked at Draco. 'I'm going to go home.'

'Really?' Thanial said grinning. 'That's swell. No, I was just - you're way ahead of me! Great!'

'We think he's had a change of heart.' Draco said, 'So we should be celebrating.'

Ginny was almost beaming. 'I hope so.'

Draco squeezed Ginny's hand. 'That was moving, wasn't it? When Fleur said - ' he turned to Thanial, 'Fleur's the French girl I saw last night, I know her, at the Opera, she's been seeing something of Anton -'

Thanial gasped. 'By Merlin.'

'But the point is Anton - well we know this - Anton loves Ginny and he misses her and apparently he's come to his senses...'

Thanial gave Ginny a grin. 'It's fantastic.' he turned back to Draco. 'I feel guilty... Ginny doesn't understand this, but anytime Anton does something I feel guilty.'


	16. Nefariously Dark

He visited the darker part of Burghtrix Terrace and the Villa Ravenclaw, explored the Ruins thoroughly, and took six potionéering lessons from an old man in his neighborhood who had a tutoring sign in his window, and to whom Thanial gave a false name. After the sixth lesson, Thanial thought that his skills were on a par with Draco's - finally. He remembered verbatim several methods that Draco had said to use at one time or another which he now knew were incorrect. For example, 'cutting the Sopophorous bean in thin slices,' one evening in the dungeons, when they had been practicing the Draught of Living Dead. It should have been 'crushed with the side of a knife' because the juices were the needed material, and would be easier to measure without the shell. Draco had never thought outside the instructions as often as it should be done in Potions. Thanial studiously kept himself from learning the proper uses of recipes.

Thanial bought dark red velvet for the drapes in his living-room, because the drapes that had come with the apartment offended him. When he had asked Madame Judette, the squib-wife of the house superintendent, if she knew of a seamstress who could make them up, Madame Judette had offered to make them herself. Her price was five sickles, hardly more than two pounds. Thanial forced her to take thirty sickles. He bought several minor items to embellish his apartment, though he never asked anyone up - with the exception of one attractive but not very bright young man, an Englishman, whom he had met in the Café Griff when the young man had asked him how to get to the Hotel Burghtrix from there. The Burghtrix was on the way to Thanial's house, so Thanial asked him to come up for a drink. Thanial had only wanted to impress him for an hour and then say good-bye to him forever, which he did, after serving him his best firewhiskey and strolling about his apartment discoursing on the pleasure of life in Edinburgh. The young man was leaving for Munich the following day.

Thanial carefully avoided the English residents of Edinburgh who might expect him to come to their parties and ask them to his in return, though he loved to chat with British and Scottish in the Café Griff and in the students' restaurants in the shopping district. He told his name only to an Irish broomcrafter named Daley, whom he met in a sidestreet-tavern, told him also that he crafted and was studying with a craftsman called Thormann Swift. If the Aurors ever investigated Anton's activities in Edinburgh, perhaps long after Anton had disappeared and become Barthanial Botts again, this one Irish broomcrafter could be relied upon to say that he knew Antonio Lestrange had been crafting in Edinburgh in January. Daley had never heard of Thormann Swift, but Thanial described him so vividly that Daley would probably never forget him.

He felt alone in Edinburgh, yet not at all lonely. It was very much like the feeling on Christmas Eve in Paris, a feeling that everyone was watching him, as if he had an audience made up of the entire world, a feeling that kept him on his mettle, because to make a mistake would be catastrophic. Yet he felt absolutely confident, he would not make a mistake. It gave his existence a peculiar, delicious atmosphere of purity, like that, Thanial thought, which a fine actor probably feels when he plays an important role on a stage with the conviction that the role he is playing could not be played better by anyone else. He was himself - and yet not himself. He felt blameless and free, despite the fact that he consciously controlled every move he made. But he no longer felt tired after several hours of it, as he had at first. He had no need to relax when he was alone. Now, from the moment when he got home from school and went to brush his teeth, he was Anton, brushing his teeth with his elbow jutted out, Anton rotating the eggshell on his spoon for the last bite, Anton invariably putting back the first tie he pulled off the rack and selecting a second. He had even produced a broom in Anton's manner.

By the end of January Thanial thought that Draco must have come and gone through Burghtrix, though Ginny's last letters had not mentioned him. Ginny wrote, care of the Burghtrix Express, about once a week. She asked if he needed any socks or a muffler, because she had plenty of time to knit, besides working on her education. She always put in a funny anecdote about somebody they knew in the village, just so Anton wouldn't think she was eating her heart out for him, though obviously she was, and obviously she wasn't going to leave for Devon in February without making another desperate try for him in person, Thanial thought, hence the investments of the long letters and the knitted socks and muffler which Thanial knew were coming, even though he hadn't replied to her letters. Her letters repelled him. He disliked even touching them, and after he glanced through them he tore them up and deconstructed them to oblivion.

He wrote finally: I'm giving up the idea of an apartment in Edinburgh for the time being. Thormann is going to Ireland for several months, and I may go with him and go on somewhere from there. My plans are vague, but they have the virtue of freedom and they suit my present mood.

Don't send me any socks, Ginny. I really don't need a thing. Wish you much luck with 'Hogwarts'.

He acquired a room at the Hotel Burghtrix, under the name Barthanial Botts, just in case anyone from the school wanted to know where he kept himself in Edinburgh. He hadn't used the room at all, but had asked the owner to please forward all mail he might receive to the Burghtrix Express.

The upcoming N.E.W.T's gave the seventh-years more time for home studies, he was already studying a few weeks ahead, so he chose to take a few days abroad. He had a ticket for Belgium - by floo to London, then the Portkey from London to Bruges over the night of January thirty-first and February first. He had bought two new overcloaks from Apius Wares, the best clothing store in Burghtrix Terrace, one a large, soft cloak of Horntail hide, the other a neat Demiguise-hide, coming from a creature that could turn invisible, which allowed him to, not quite turn invisible, but blend in with his surroundings somewhat. Both bore Anton's initials. He had thrown the shabbier of his own two overcloaks away, and the remaining one he kept in the closet of his apartment, full of his own clothes, in case of emergency. But Thanial was not expecting any emergencies. The scuttled brooms in Wallclaw had never been found. Thanial looked through the papers every day for something about it.

While Thanial was packing his trunk one afternoon his doorbell rang. He supposed it was a solicitor of some kind, or a mistake. He had no name on his doorbell, and he had told the superintendent that he did not want his name on the doorbell because he didn't like people to drop in on him. It rang for the second time, and Thanial still ignored it, and went on with his lackadaisical packing. He loved to pack, and he took a long time about it, a whole day or two days, laying Anton's clothes affectionately into his new trunk, now and then trying on a good-looking shirt or a jacket in front of the mirror. He was standing in front of the mirror, buttoning a yellow-and-white broom-patterned sport shirt of Anton's that he had never worn, when there came a knock at his door.

It crossed his mind that it might be Draco, that it would be just like Draco to hunt him down in Edinburgh and try to surprise him. That was silly, he told himself. But his hands were cool with sweat as he went to the door. He felt faint, and the absurdity of his faintness, plus the danger of keeling over and being found prostrate on the floor, made him wrench the door open with both hands, though he opened it only a few inches.

'Hello!" the posh voice said out of the semi-darkness of the hall. 'Anton? It's Cedric!'

Thanial took a step back, holding the door open. 'He's - Won't you come in? He's not here right now. He should be back in a little later.'

Cedric Diggory came in, looking around. His ugly, freckled face gawked in every direction. How in hell had he found the place, Thanial wondered. Thanial slipped his rings off quickly and pocketed them. And what else? He glanced around the room.

'You're staying with him?' Cedric asked with that walleyed stare that made his face look idiotic and rather scared.

'Oh, no. I'm just staying here for a few hours,' Thanial said, casually removing the broom shirt. He had another shirt on under it. 'Anton's out for dinner. The Oyster, I think he said. He should be back around nine at the latest.' One of the Judettes must have let Cedric in, Thanial thought, and told him which bell to press, and told him Mister Lestrange was in, too. Cedric had probably said he was an old friend of Anton's. Now he would have to get Cedric out of the house without running into Madame Judette downstairs, because she always sang out, 'Good day, Mister Lestrange!'

'I don't think he's at dinner at six-thirty pm.' Cedric said, 'If you said he was still at lunch I'd believe you. Incredible. The guy has disappeared off the face of the earth.'

'I guess.'

'The landlady - as far as I could tell, the landlady said he was here right now.'

'He's gone to dinner!' Thanial said, losing his cool, 'Search the place. I can't think why you would imagine Anton would hide from you.'

'Because he's _been_ hiding from me - what happened at Christmas?'

'What about Christmas?' Thanial said as he closed the trunk.

'He was supposed to come to the championship. I didn't get an owl or a call or a note or, frankly, a fart.'

'How was the championship?'

'Oh, fine,' Cedric said and inspected the marble fireplace.

Cedric was beginning to stroll around and Thanial eyes darted frantically to see if anything could blow his cover. 'Of course, he's been very involved in his flying, hasn't he?' Thanial said. 'I think his theory is, you know, you have to go into a cocoon before you can become a butterfly.

Cedric glared at him. 'Which is horseshit. Have you seen him fly that thing?' he gestured at the broom Thanial had crafted as Anton would have done, 'He can't.'

'Didn't he write to you? He decided to spend the winter in Edinburgh. He told me he'd written to you.'

'Not a word - unless he wrote to Aberdeen. But I was in London, and he had my address.' Cedric half sat on Thanial's long table, rumpling the green silk runner. He smiled. 'Ginny told me he'd moved to Edinburgh, but she didn't have any address except the Burghtrix Express. It was only by the damnedest luck I found his apartment.'

Thanial moved casually over to the bar. 'How did you find him? It's such an out of the way apartment. Can I fix you a drink?'

'No thanks. I ran into somebody at the post office last night who just happened to know his address. What's this idea of -'

'Who?' Thanial asked. 'An Irishman?'

'No, a Scottish fellow. Just a young kid.' Cedric was looking at Thanial's shoes. 'You've got the same kind of shoes Anton and I have. They wear like iron, don't they? I bought my pair in London three years ago.'

They were Anton's dragon-leather shoes. 'These came from Hogsmeade,' Thanial said. 'Are you sure I can't offer you a drink or would you rather try to catch Anton at the Oyster? Do you know where it is? There's not much use in your waiting, because he generally takes till nine with his dinners. I'm going out soon myself.'

Cedric had strolled towards the bedroom and stopped, looking at the clothes on the bed. 'Is Anton leaving for somewhere or did he just get here?' Cedric asked, turning.

'He's leaving. Didn't Ginny tell you? He's going to Ireland for a while.'

'When?'

'Tomorrow. Or late tonight, I'm not quite sure.'

'Say, what's the matter with Anton lately?' Cedric asked, frowning. 'What's the idea of all the seclusion?'

'He says he's been working pretty hard this winter,' Thanial said in an offhand tone. 'He seems to want privacy, but as far as I know he's still on good terms with everybody, including Ginny.'

Cedric smiled again, unbuttoning his long polo coat. 'He's not going to stay on good terms with me if he stands me up a few more times. Are you sure he's on good terms with Ginny? I got the idea from her that they'd had a quarrel. I thought maybe that was why they didn't go to the championship.' Cedric looked at him expectantly.

'Not that I know of.' Thanial went to the closet to get his jacket, so that Cedric would know he wanted to leave, then realized just in time that the grey flannel jacket that matched his trousers might be recognizable as Anton's, if Cedric knew Anton's suit. Thanial reached for a jacket of his own and for his own overcloak that were hanging at the extreme left of the closet. The shoulders of the overcloak looked as if the coat had been on a hanger for weeks, which it had. Thanial turned around and saw Cedric staring at the silver identification bracelet on his left wrist. It was Anton's bracelet, which Thanial had never seen him wearing, but had found in Anton's studbox. Cedric was looking at it as if he had seen it before. Thanial put on his overcloak casually.

Cedric was looking at him now with a different expression, with a little surprise. Thanial knew what Cedric was thinking. He stiffened, sensing danger. You're not out of the woods yet, he told himself. You're not out of the house yet.

'Ready to go?' Thanial asked.

'You do live here, don't you?'

'No!' Thanial protested, smiling. The ugly, freckle-blotched face stared at him from under the garish thatch of brown hair. If they could only get out without running into Madame Judette downstairs, Thanial thought. 'Let's go.'

Cedric glanced lazily from Thanial to regard the red velvet drapes. 'Did this place come furnished? It doesn't look like Anton. Horrible isn't it? - so bourgeois.' He turned back towards Thanial. 'In fact, the only thing which looks like Anton is you.'

'Hardly,' Thanial said instantly.

Cedric's ugly brow lifted. 'Have you done something to your hair?'

Thanial smiled. 'Cedric, do you have something to say?'

'What? I think I'm saying it. Something's going on. He's either converted to Christianity - or to something else.' Cedric looked back to Thanial's covered arm. 'But Anton's loaded you up with all his jewelry, I see.'

Thanial couldn't think of a single thing to say, a single joke to make. 'Oh, it's a loan,' Thanial said in his deepest voice. 'Anton got tired of wearing it, so he told me to wear it for a while.' He meant the identification bracelet, but there was also the silver clip on his tie, he realized, with the L on it. Thanial had bought the tie-clip himself. He could feel the belligerence growing in Cedric Diggory as surely as if his long body were generating a heat that he could feel across the room. Cedric was the kind of ox who might beat up somebody he thought was a pansy, especially if the conditions were as propitious as these. Thanial was afraid of his eyes. 'I suggest you just ask Anton yourself. The Sweet Oyster is on Ravenclaw's Cross, just off the Square.'

'Is it on "Ravenclaw's Cross, just off the Square"?' Cedric said in a mocking tone. 'You're a quick study, aren't you? Last time you didn't know your ass from your elbow, now you're giving me directions... That's not fair, you probably _do_ know your ass from your elbow.'

Thanial just watched him, trying to appear composed.

'Yes, I'm ready to go,' Cedrik said grimly, getting up. He walked to the door and turned with a swing of his broad shoulders. 'Nice to see you again,' he said unpleasantly, and closed the door.

Thanial whispered a curse. He opened the door slightly and listened to the quick tap-tap-tap-tap of Cedric's shoes descending the stairs. He wanted to make sure Cedric got out without speaking to one of the Judettes again. Then he heard Cedric's 'Good evening, madame.' Thanial leaned over the stairwell. Three storeys down, he could see part of Cedric's coat-sleeve. He was talking in a muffled voice with Madame Judette. The woman's voice came more clearly.

'... only Mister Lestrange,' she was saying. 'No, only one... Mister Botts?... No, sir... I do not think he has gone out today at all, but I could be wrong!' She laughed.

Thanial twisted the stair rail in his hands as if it were Cedric's neck. Then Thanial heard Cedric's footsteps running up the stairs. Thanial stepped back into the apartment and closed the door. He could go on insisting that he didn't live here, that Anton was at the Oyster, or that he didn't know where Anton was, but Cedric wouldn't stop now until he had found Anton. Or Cedric would drag him downstairs and ask Madame Judette who he was.

Cedric knocked on the door. The knob turned. It was locked. Thanial picked up a heavy glass ash-tray. He couldn't get his hand across it, and he had to hold it by the edge. He tried to think just for two seconds more: wasn't there another way out? What would he do with the body? He couldn't think. This was the only way out. He opened the door with his left hand. His right hand with the ash-tray was drawn back and down.

Cedric came into the room. 'Listen, would you mind telling -'

The curved edge of the ash-tray hit the middle of his forehead. Cedric looked dazed - Thanial had used a wandless push on instinct. Then Cedric's knees bent and he went down like a bull hit between the eyes with a hammer. Thanial kicked the door shut. He slammed the edge of the ash-tray into the back of Cedric's neck. He hit the neck again and again, terrified that Cedric might be only pretending and that one of his long arms might suddenly circle his legs and pull him down. Thanial struck his head a glancing blow, and blood came. Thanial cursed himself. He lifted a hand and summoned a towel from the bathroom and put it under Cedric's head. Then he felt Cedric's wrist for a pulse. There was one, faint, and it seemed to flutter away as he touched it as if the pressure of his own fingers stilled it. In the next second it was gone. Thanial listened for any sound behind the door. He imagined Madame Judette standing behind the door with the hesitant smile she always had when she felt she was interrupting. But there wasn't any sound. There hadn't been any loud sound, he thought, either from the ash-tray or when Cedric fell. Thanial looked down at Cedric's lengthy form on the floor and he felt a sudden disgust and a sense of helplessness.

It was only seven, hours until the city was quiet. He wondered if Cedric had people waiting for him anywhere? Maybe in a car downstairs? He searched Cedric's pockets. A wallet. The British passport in the inside breast pocket of the jacket. Mixed pounds, sickles, and some other kind of coins. A wand. Thanial was careful not to touch it and lifted it out wandlessly onto the floor. A keycase. There were two car keys on a ring that said FIAT. He searched the wallet for a ministry-license. There it was, with all the particulars: FIAT 1400 nero - convertible - 19. He could find it if it was in the neighborhood. He searched every pocket, and the pockets in the buff-colored vest, for more information, but he found none. He went to the front window, then nearly smiled because it was so simple: there stood the black convertible across the street almost directly in front of the house. He could not be sure, but he thought there was no one in it.

He suddenly knew what he was going to do. He set about arranging the room, bringing out the gin and vermouth bottles from his liquor cabinet and on second thought the pernod because it smelled so much stronger. He set the bottles on the long table and mixed a martini in a tall glass with a couple of ice cubes in it, drank a little of it so that the glass would be soiled, then poured some of it into another glass, took it over to Cedric and crushed his limp fingers around it and carried it back to the table. He looked at the wound, and found that it had stopped bleeding or was stopping and had not run through the towel on to the floor. He propped Cedric up against the wall, and poured some straight gin from the bottle down his throat. It didn't go down very well, most of it went on to his shirtfront, but Thanial didn't think the Scottish Aurors would actually make a muggle blood test to see how drunk Cedric had been. Thanial let his eyes rest absently on Cedric's limp, messy face for a moment, and his stomach contracted sickeningly and he quickly looked away. He mustn't do that again. His head had begun ringing as if he were going to faint.

That'd be a fine thing, Thanial thought as he wobbled across the room towards the window, to faint now! He frowned at the black car down below, and breathed the fresh air in deeply. He wasn't going to faint, he told himself. He knew exactly what he was going to do. At the last minute, the pernod, for both of them. Two other glasses with their fingerprints and pernod. And the ash-trays must be full. Cedric smoked ScruffyCats. Then up in the air and out of the city. One of those dark places behind Author's Tombs. There weren't any street lights for long stretches outside Edinburgh city. Cedric's wallet would be missing. Objective: robbery.

Robbery wouldn't seem plausible if he destroyed the body. Would deconstructing the body, just like he had Anton, be the best solution? Thanial had a suspicion that Cedric was far more well-known than Anton, and that making him disappear completely wouldn't be wise - the image of Miss Delacour crossed his mind. The whole thing had happened so very suddenly. One minute Cedric was right in his face, more alive than he had ever been, and the next he was meat against the wall, marinated in gin.

How was he supposed to get Cedric past Madame Judette? Thanial wasn't strong. Cedric was taller than him, so how was he to carry him? Lifting him wandlessly would be too obvious, even for a squib to see, and he was barely skilled in a way to make him move like a puppet. Puppet!

Thanial got the idea instantly, though he wasn't certain if it would work.

He willed the image and Cedric's body tumbled to the side and dragged itself to the middle of the floor as the carpet made leeway, rolling aside after a wave of Thanial's hand.

He remembered Paracelsus' quote from The Archidoxes of Magic': The Hermetic and Alchemical Laws cannot be broken and therefore everything has a value equal to the other, unless in death.

Unless in death...

And Cedric was dead...

So Cedric could be turned into an inferious puppet...

Thanial recalled the alchemic ritual: Following a perfect circle of fire surrounding the deceased body, the hexagon must be drawn inside the circle and in a fire as before. All of this is done in precise measurements, and the assistance of an elementalist or wandless alchemist is recommended.

Thanial was no elementalist, but had an adequate understanding of the elements, like any Alchemist should have. A fire was the rapid oxidation of a material in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products.

He willed the image of a perfect circle surrounding Cedric and a fire erupted instantaneously, enclosing the body in a crimson glow.

A nameless chill went down Thanial's spine then, a frisson of fear and disorientation like he'd just felt the floor tilt beneath him, threatening to spill him into some darkness lying beneath.

Nevermind that, he thought biting his tongue. He imagined the hexagon, and the fire ignited as before, lining the inside of the circle with six corners.

All the lamps and lights died out a moment later. The only light was from the dark red hexagon.

Thanial felt a suction towards the array.

The glow intensified and almost blinded him, just a moment before it went out completely.

Darkness...

Then the hexagon ignited again, more fierce, and this time in a darker red color.

A chill wind seemed to spring up within the confines of the living-room then, a dark breath that caressed his face and touched his hands with ice. He could feel it, mind and body alike, the sensation of some dark will pressing down on him, a tingling in the air as something built and built and built.

Thanial felt cold all over and was sure his face would be white as chalk. The apartment was plunged then into utter darkness and silence, so that only the hexagon could be seen, like there was nothing left in the universe except Cedric and the light illuminating him from some nameless source.

There was a movement from Cedric's face and Thanial almost lost his footing in shock. It was Cedric's lips; they were parting slowly... very, very slowly.

'It...' The word escaped Cedric in a strained whisper. '... hurts.'

Cedric wasn't dead! He had started the ritual without even checking with a spell first! Thanial cursed himself and understood then, with terrible foreboding, that the Law of Equivalent Exchange would demand something for the life that would be taken, and in equal value. Now it couldn't be stopped. It was out of his hands and he had brought it upon himself.

Strange words began to arise. Words from neither himself nor Cedric, that came in beats, much like a chant. The sound wound itself around his ears and began to change, like a terrible lullaby. Thanial recognized the language and understood that it probably only sounded inside his own mind - it was the same chant he had heard the Sorting Hat speak to him. He tried to tighten his focus, tried really hard to hear, but the words slipped strangely from his memory just after each phrase had been spoken. Thanial knew the exchange would happen; Since the alchemical forces being manipulated wasn't human in origin, but of the world as a whole and the Etherium, the consequences for attempting to bypass the Law of Equivalent Exchange in transmutation was not merely failure and cessation. When too much was attempted out of too little, what occurred was called a Rebound, in which the alchemical forces that were thrown out of balance on either side of the equation would fluctuate wildly of their own accord, in order to stabilize themselves - taking or giving more than was intended - in often unpredictable and catastrophic ways such as accidental mutation, serious injury, or death.

Only in death could the inferious be made, and Cedric had been alive. Thanial twisted his face in thought, knowing that he could die at any moment himself. Praying for a chance, no matter how small it was, to get this ritual completed and still be uninjured.

Thanial glanced at Cedric - the lips weren't moving anymore.

The hexagon died out and the chanting stopped.

Silence...

Thanial immediately felt something pressing against him: It felt warm and solid, like a blanket, but invisible and foreign and ungraspable. He felt it slip away, and somehow it didn't feel like the right thing that should happen - it didn't feel right at all! Thanial tried to catch it with his hands, but it was like catching smoke and it slipped through his fingers like fine silk. Up and up it went, higher and higher until he couldn't feel it anymore. The alien closeness, that had given him a moment of warmth, had left him cold in the dark. It was gone, and Thanial knew that it had only been there a second or two... only those seconds had felt timeless. It had been something real, and important, he just knew.

He inhaled and breathed and inhaled again - there was no light or sound from anywhere. It took a few minutes before he had calmed down moderately enough to, with some trepidation, flick his finger in the direction of the light switch.

The light came and Thanial stumbled backward as he saw it.

Cedric's body had risen again, eyes blank, breathing once more. Thanial stared at the Inferius with a horrible sinking sensation in his stomach, the second-worst feeling he'd ever felt in his life.

He swallowed the horrible feeling and disregarded the protesting thoughts - for now at least. Thanial frantically started to feel his own person; legs, chest, arms, ears, nose - everything was still there! The alchemic ritual had apparently worked, he wasn't in pain, he had no injuries, and everything was fine.

The inferi would follow verbal commands given by its creator, so Cedric wouldn't move until Thanial asked him to. That gave him time.

He had hours of time, but he didn't stop until the room was ready, the dozen lighted ScruffyCats and the dozen or so ScruffyCats burnt down and stabbed out in the ash-trays, and a glass of pernod broken and only half cleaned up from the bathroom tiles, and the curious thing was that as he set his scene so carefully, he pictured having hours more time to clean it up - say between four next morning when the body might be found, and after breakfast, when the Aurors just might decide he was worth questioning, because somebody just might have known that Cedric Diggory was going to call on Anton Lestrange today - and he knew that he would have it all cleared up by three o'clock, probably, because according to the story he was going to tell, Cedric would have left his house by eleven (as indeed Cedric was going to leave his house by eleven), and Anton Lestrange was a fairly tidy young man, even with a few drinks in him. But the point of the messy house was that the messiness substantiated merely for his own benefit the story that he was going to tell, and that therefore he had to believe himself.

The Aurors worked in teams, and each team was assigned a district, so he knew that the Aurors working the Hogwarts Grounds wasn't allowed to patrol Edinburgh, because it was way out of their jurisdiction. That made everything a lot easier - he guessed the chances of an Auror recognizing him was fairly low, should they question him.

And he would still leave for London and Bruges at ten-thirty tomorrow morning, unless for some reason the Aurors detained him. If he saw in the Daily Prophet tomorrow morning that the body had been found, and the Aurors did not try to contact him, it was only decent that he should volunteer to tell them that Cedric Diggory had been at his house until late afternoon, Thanial thought. But it suddenly occurred to him that a healer might be able to tell that Cedric had been dead since noon. And he couldn't get Cedric out now, not while the city was still awake. No, his only hope was that the body wouldn't be found for so many hours that a healer couldn't tell exactly how long he had been dead. And he must try to get out of the house without anybody seeing him -whether he could carry Cedric down with a fair amount of ease like a passed-out drunk or not - so that if he had to make any statement, he could say that Cedric left the house around eleven or twelve at night.

He dreaded the two - or three-hour wait until nightfall so much that for a few moments he thought he couldn't wait. That tower standing motionless on the floor! And he hadn't wanted to kill him at all. It had been so unnecessary, Cedric and his stinking, filthy suspicions. Thanial was trembling, sitting on the edge of a chair cracking his knuckles. He wanted to go out and take a walk, but he was afraid to leave the inferious standing there. There had to be noise, of course, if he and Cedric were supposed to be talking and drinking all night. Thanial turned the wireless on to a station that played dance music. He could have a drink, at least. That was part of the act. He made another couple of martinis with ice in the glass. He didn't even want it, but he drank it.

The gin only intensified the same thoughts he had had. He stood looking up at Cedric's long, heavy body in the polo coat that was crumpled on him, that he hadn't the energy or the heart to straighten out, though it annoyed him, and thinking how sad, stupid, clumsy, dangerous and unnecessary his death had been, turning his corpse into an inferi, and how brutally unfair to Cedric. Of course, one could loathe Cedric, too. A selfish, stupid bastard who had sneered at one of his best friends - Anton certainly was one of his best friends - just because he suspected him of sexual deviation. Thanial laughed at that phrase 'sexual deviation'. Where was the sex? Where was the deviation? He looked at Cedric and said low and bitterly: 'Cedric Diggory, you're a victim of your own dirty mind.'

He waited after all until nearly twelve, because around eleven there were always more people coming in and out of the house than at other times. At ten to twelve, he strolled downstairs, to make sure that Madame Judette was not pottering around in the hall and that her door was not open, and to make sure there really was no one in Cedric's car, though he had gone down earlier to look at the car and see if it was Cedric's. He tossed Cedric's polo coat into the back seat. He came back upstairs, faced Cedric stating 'follow my lead slowly' and 'let me provide support' and pulled Cedric's arm around his neck, set his teeth, and lifted. Cedric's legs moved with his own, stepping in a mechanic rhythm that suited Thanial's own pace perfectly. Thanial staggered for a moment, jerking the flaccid weight higher on his shoulder. He had lifted Cedric earlier that afternoon, just to see if he could, and he had seemed barely able to walk two steps in the room with Cedric's pounds pressing his own feet against the floor, and Cedric was exactly as heavy now, but the difference was that the body could move itself now. He let Cedric's feet lead to relieve some of his weight, managed to pull his door shut with his elbow, then began to descend the stairs. Halfway down the first flight, he stopped, hearing someone come out of an apartment on the second floor. He waited until the person had gone down the stairs and out the front door, then recommenced his slow, bumping descent. He had pulled a hat of Anton's well down over Cedric's head so that the bloodstained hair would not show. On a mixture of gin and pernod, which he had been drinking for the last hour, Thanial had gotten himself to a precisely calculated state of intoxication in which he thought he could move with a certain nonchalance and smoothness and at the same time be courageous and even foolhardy enough to take chances without flinching. The first chance, the worst thing that could happen, was that he might simply collapse under Cedric's weight before he got him to the car. He had sworn that he would not stop to rest going down the stairs. He didn't. And nobody else came out of any of the apartments, and nobody came in the front door. During the hours upstairs, Thanial had imagined so tortuously everything that might happen - Madame Judette or her husband coming out of their apartment just as he reached the bottom of the stairs, or himself fainting so that both he and Cedric would be discovered sprawled on the stairs together, or being unable to command Cedric up again if he had to put him down to rest - imagined it all with such intensity, writhing upstairs in his apartment, that to have descended all the stairs without a single one of his imaginings happening made him feel he was gliding down under a magical protection of some kind, with ease in spite of the mass on his shoulder.

He looked out of the glass of the two front doors. The street looked normal: a man was walking on the opposite sidewalk, but there was always someone walking on one sidewalk or the other. He opened the first door with one hand, kicked it aside and pulled Cedric's body through. Between the doors, he shifted Cedric to the other shoulder, rolling his head under Cedric's body, and for a second a certain pride went through him at his own strength, until the ache in his relaxing arm staggered him with its pain. The arm was too tired even to circle Cedric's body. He set his teeth harder and staggered down the four front steps, banging his hip against the stone newel post as Cedric followed his lead.

A man approaching him on the sidewalk slowed his steps as if he were going to stop, but he went on.

If anyone came over, Thanial thought, he would blow such a breath of pernod in his face there wouldn't be any reason to ask what was the matter. Damn them, damn them, damn them, he said to himself as he jolted down the kerb. Passers-by, innocent passers-by. Four of them now. But only two of them so much as glanced at him, he thought. He paused a moment for a vehicle to pass. Then with a few quick steps and a heave he thrust Cedric's head and one shoulder through the open window of the car, far enough in that he could brace Cedric's body with his own body while he got his breath. He looked around, under the glow of light from the street lamp across the street, into the shadows in front of his own apartment house.

At that instant the Judette's youngest son ran out of the door and down the sidewalk without looking in Thanial's direction. Then a man crossing the street walked within a yard of the car with only a brief and faintly surprised look at Cedric's bent figure, which did look almost natural now, Thanial thought, practically as if Cedric were only leaning into the car talking to someone, only he really didn't look quite natural, Thanial knew. But that was the advantage of Scotland, he thought. Nobody helped anybody, nobody meddled. If this had been London - 'Can I help you?' a voice asked in a Gaelic accent.

'Ah, no, no, thanks,' Thanial replied with drunken good cheer. 'I know where he lives,' he added in mumbled English.

The man nodded, smiling a little, too, and walked on. A tall thin man in a thin overcoat, hatless, with a moustache. Thanial hoped he wouldn't remember. Or remember the car.

Thanial swung Cedric out on the door, pulled him around the door and on to the car seat, came around the car and pulled Cedric into the seat beside the driver's seat. The inferi was in a strange and very moveable state - much like guiding a blind person around - and that was all linked to the commands he'd given.

Then Thanial put on the pair of brown leather gloves he had stuck into his overcloak pocket. He put Cedric's key into the dashboard. The car started obediently. Invisibility-blinds on. They were off. Up in the air to Author's Tombs, past the National Gallery, over Calton Hill, past the balcony on which Rowena Ravenclaw used to stand to make her speeches, past the gargantuan Scott Monument and over the harbor, past the city castle, a grand tour of Edinburgh that Cedric could not appreciate at all. It was just as if Cedric were sleeping beside him, as sometimes people did sleep when you wanted to show them scenery.

Author's Tombs stretched out before him, grey and ancient in the soft lights of its infrequent lamps. Black fragments of tombs rose up on either side of the road below, silhouetted against the still not quite dark sky. Thanial slowly descended, landing with a bump before turning of the invisibility and continuing. There was more darkness than light. And only a single car ahead, coming this way. Not many people chose to take a ride on such a bumpy, gloomy road after dark in the month of January. Except perhaps lovers. The approaching car passed him. Thanial began to look around for the right spot. Cedric ought to have a handsome tomb to lie behind, he thought. There was a spot ahead with three or four trees near the edge of the road and doubtless a tomb behind them or part of a tomb. Thanial pulled off the road by the trees and shut off his lights. He waited a moment, looking at both ends of the straight, empty road.

He hadn't made any commands, so Cedric was still as limp as a rubber doll. What was all this about rigor mortis? He had read that it even affected the inferious... He dragged the limp body roughly now, scraping the face in the dirt, behind the last tree and behind the little remnant of tomb that was only a four-feet-high, jagged arc of wall, but which was probably a remnant of the tomb of a patrician, Thanial thought, and quite enough for this giraffe. Thanial cursed his ugly weight and kicked him suddenly in the chin. He was tired, tired to the point of crying, sick of the sight of Cedric Diggory, and the moment when he could turn his back on him for the last time seemed never to come. There was still the Goddamned coat! Thanial's magical reserve had felt drained since the ritual so he abandoned using wandless and went back on the car to get it. The ground was hard and dry, he noticed as he walked back, and should not leave any traces of his steps. He flung the coat down beside the body, and using the last magic he had left, flicked a finger down at the body.

He waited until the fire had died out, turned away quickly and walked back to the car on his numb, staggering legs, and turned the car around towards Edinburgh again.

As he drove, he wiped the outside of the car door with his gloved hand to get the fingerprints off, the only place he had touched the car before he put his gloves on, he thought. It was rare, but the Aurors had used muggle methods of investigation before, so Thanial would make sure to erase the trace. On the street that curved up to the Burghtrix Express, opposite a nightclub, he landed the car and got out and left it with the keys in the dashboard. He still had Cedric's wallet in his pocket, though he had transferred the muggle pounds to his own billfold and had deconstructed a Swiss twenty-franc note and some Austrian schilling notes in his apartment. Now he took the wallet out of his pocket, and as he passed a sewer grate he leaned down and dropped it in.

There were only two things wrong, he thought as he walked towards his house: robbers would logically have taken the polo coat, because it was a good one, and also the passport, which was still in the overcloak pocket. But not every robber was logical, he thought, maybe especially a Scottish robber. And not every murderer was logical, either. The Aurors might even suspect Death Eaters, though the body was burned to hide the necromancies. His mind drifted back to the conversation with Cedric. '... a Scottish fellow. Just a young kid...' Somebody had followed him home at some time, Thanial thought, because he hadn't told anybody where he lived. It shamed him. Maybe two or three delivery boys might know where he lived, but a delivery boy wouldn't be sitting in a place like the Café Griff. It shamed him and made him shrink inside his overcloak. He imagined a white, panting young face following him home, staring up to see which window had lighted up after he had gone in. Thanial hunched in his overcloak and walked faster as if he were fleeing a sick, passionate pursuer.


End file.
